


California Drifting

by elesary



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jaegers (Pacific Rim), Kaiju (Pacific Rim), M/M, Possessive Andrew Minyard, Protective Andrew Minyard, Slow Burn, The Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:22:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27498652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elesary/pseuds/elesary
Summary: After leaving his mother's corpse on a beach in California, Neil Josten can't resist the Jaeger pilot simulators she had forbidden. His scores attract the attention of the Foxhole Shatterdome, bringing him fatally close to someone from his past. Neil should say no. He should run far, far away, but Kevin offers him the chance to be close to Jaeger's and pilots and even if he can't risk sharing his mind with anyone, he can't stay away.The sharks are circling, there's blood in the water, and not even a Shatterdome filled with Jaeger's can protect Neil from his past. But in the face of Andrew's stalwart protection, even Neil's father seems fallible.Loosely based off the Pacific Rim franchise.
Relationships: Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard, Katelyn/Aaron Minyard, Matt Boyd/Danielle "Dan" Wilds, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Seth Gordon/Allison Reynolds
Comments: 92
Kudos: 114





	1. Chapter 1

The hit Neil takes would have levelled a small building, but he merely stumbles two steps to the right and regains his balance. Taking advantage of the situation, he harnesses that power to gain momentum, rearing back upright and sinking his hummer-sized fist into the pincer-framed face of the monster. Oily, blue blood spatters the screen in front of him and Neil presses his advantage, flexing his hand to trigger the spinning blades on his right wrist. With his left hand he hauls the kaiju back upright to hold it steady as tears into it with his chainsaw. The kaiju reaches out with one massive pincer and clamps down on his right arm. 

Alarms shriek. The visual on the left side of the screen flashes red, warning him of the intense pressure to his left arm. Neil feels the sickening lurch as it’s torn free from his body. The Kaiju, codename Lightmaw, howls with triumph. It’s premature. The stump of Neil’s arm is sparking with electricity and they are waist deep in the ocean. Neil sinks his electrified stump into the broken mess of Lightmaw’s shattered skull. The kaiju jerks, screams, thrashes, jarring Neil even in the pilot's harness. 

Neil grimly hangs on, smashing his helmet into the monster's face, dislodging more bone so what’s left of his arm can sink in deeper, hastening its demise. The reek of charred Kaiju flesh drifts into the cabin, unsurprisingly, since delicate cracks fork across his screen with every hit to the creature’s impossibly hard head. 

Lightmaw howls, buglike eyes burning with hatred. Saliva flies out of it’s cavernous mouth, each tooth longer than Neil is tall.  _ Which isn’t saying much _ , Neil thinks unkindly. Neil is many things, but tall is not one of them. 

The kaiju stumbles away, the waves tinged electric blue. Neil is relentless, pummelling it with his remaining arm until the monster breaks open, pulping under Neil’s punishment. When the kaiju finally goes still, the screen clicks to black, broken only by the flashing of Neil’s score as the rest of the lights come back on, reminding Neil that he is not in the Pacific ocean, but a rundown arcade in the middle of a desert. The screen prompts him to enter his name, tells him he made the leaderboard. 

Neil smiles, but he’s not in the least amused. Every time. Every time he forgets. One day he’ll learn his lesson and give up this  _ useless _ dream. One day he’ll stop picking Kevin Day’s kills, determined to see if he could fare better than the legendary pilot against his most famous kills. The jealousy will kill him before his father can, but that thought isn’t comforting in the least. Neil closes out the game without recording his score. He’s an idiot for playing, but he’s never been suicidal. His scores are far too high for a shit town like Millport, recording them would only draw attention no matter what name he uses. 

The irony is not lost on him. Being here, doing what he’s doing, over and over is enough to get him killed, not signing his work is too little too late. Neil is suddenly fiercely glad that his mother is dead and doesn’t have to witness him spitting on her grave like this. He is selfish and far too stupid to live to repay her devotion to him by throwing it all away. 

But. 

But. It appears that he left all of her lessons with her bones on that beach just north of San Francisco. Maybe if she had died elsewhere he would have been able to ignore the pull of the simulators and Jaeger pilots, but he could see the Foxhole Shatterdome through the oily black smoke from the car that was her pyre. All he could think of as he burned was how close he was to Kevin Day, for the first time in eight years. 

Meeting Kevin was the best and worst day of his life. He had watched the limo, so shiny and black it seemed to have its own gravitational pull, glide to stop in front of his father’s Baltimore mansion and spit out two children, Riko Moriyama and Kevin Day, and Riko’s uncle Tetsuji. He had sprinted downstairs and for once, he wasn’t beaten or cut for answering the door. Riko and Kevin had seemed as excited as Nathaniel had been, or at least, Kevin was. Riko watched him with narrowed eyes, especially when Kevin was talking to him. But Nathaniel didn’t care about that. He had overheard his parents the night before, he knew what this was. If they liked him, they would take him away to Evermore Thunderdome in Japan and train him to be a Jaegar pilot. He could leave his father behind and escape! 

Neil had proudly led them downstairs to the training room in the basement, pointedly ignoring the innocuous looking door that haunted his nightmares; his father’s workshop. If all went well,  _ he would never have to go in there again.  _ That thought sustained him as Tetsuji handed out the smooth wooden staffs and set them to fight each other. Kevin and Riko were better than he was, and stronger, and knew how to fight against and with each other, but Nathaniel was faster, and as it turned out, that counted for a lot. The first time he had struck Riko, his face had turned bright red, highlighting the black sharpie number 1 on his face, and Nathaniel had realized, with a sinking feeling, that Riko smiled like Nathaniel’s father, when he was angry.

When the fire had reached his mother, Neil had distracted himself from the stench of burning flesh by wondering how Riko had reacted to Kevin showing up at the Foxhole Shatterdome, instead of becoming a mechanic at Moriyama industries as he was supposed to, after his breakdown. 

With Mary still so freshly seared into his memory, he had managed to force his feet away from the Pacific and the temptation to stay close enough to maybe see a Jaeger take down a Kaiju. He knew, if he saw that even once, he would never be able to force himself to leave. 

Millport was supposed to be a stop over. He was supposed to pick up the cache of money and a new identity and leave on the first greyhound south. But Neil had spotted the flickering neon lights of the arcade from the bus station, advertising a Jaeger Simulator.  _ Just a peek _ , he had lied to himself. And then he had seen that the game was preloaded with the Kevin Day and Riko Moriyama battles, their faces, still so familiar, sharpie numbers now tattooed permanently under their left eyes, and Neil was lost. 

The owner of the arcade, a pudgy man known only as ‘Hernandez’ had noticed that Neil showed up each day and stared covetously on as kids and teenagers took their turns with the game. He had offered Neil the couch in the back room and a closing shift if he wanted a job. Neil should have run. He should have changed his name and run for South America. Instead he had stayed knowing a closing shift and employee discount would let him  _ play _ . Millport wasn’t even on the map, it was doubtful this machine in this dinky little arcade was even connected to the database that tracked unusually high scores and sent them to Thunderdomes to pull recruits from. Even so, Neil never saved his scores. 

_ Too stupid to live _ , his mother would say, and beat him until he ran and ran and ran and never even thought about stopping again. 

“Hey, Kid.” Hernandez says, jolting Neil from his thoughts as he pushes dirt around with the wet mop. The idea of getting rid of the grit and dust that settles over everything in Millport is a losing battle, but one that Neil fights each evening. Neil had thought that Hernandez had left for the evening. The fact that he has been able to surprise Neil is yet another glaring red sign that Neil should run, but Neil knows, a little desperately, that he won’t. 

Maybe he should rethink that whole ‘I’m not suicidal’ thing. Because, clearly…

“There’s someone here to see you.”

For one terrible instant, the looming shadow behind Hernandez’s squat form is his father, and then it coalesces into a tan man with dark hair and tribal flame tattoos on his forearms. It isn’t much better. The only people who could possibly be looking for him work for the butcher and Neil needs to run, now.

His fists tighten compulsively on the handle of the mop. It’s a bad weapon, but it's all he has, and the men are between him and the nearest door. “Neil Josten?” the stranger says, striding forward, tablet in one hand. “My name is Commander David Wymack, of the-”

Neil laughs hollowly, the irony too heavy, even for him. “Foxhole Shatterdome, I know who you are.”

Wymack stops short, faint surprise on his weather-beaten face. “Then you know why I’m here,” he holds out the tablet, swiping to find something to show Neil. “I have three Jaeger’s to fill this year, and your scores stood out to us-”

_ Us.  _ The word hits Neil like a freight train. Wymack can only mean one person. Neil runs, he drops the mop with a clatter and darts around Wymack, who reaches out too slowly to catch him, and Hernandez, whose face shifts from excited to surprised so comically that Neil almost laughs. Neil slides into the office, he needs his duffel,  _ Stupid, stupid stupid, how could he be so stupid? _ and skids to stop, staring dumbly at the man perched on Hernandez’s desk. 

The man is young, only a few years older than Neil is pretending to be, he is watching his screen and even from here Neil can see its footage from his own simulations, but he looks up with interest when Neil comes in. Neil wants to be sick. The sight of the two on his face is a noose tightening around his neck. 

A year ago, a few weeks before Neil had burned his mother’s body, the entire world was rocked by the news that Kevin Day, fresh off a terrible battle with a category 5 kaiju, had wrenched his mind out of the drift he shared with Riko. His subsequent breakdown had damaged his brain enough that it was widely reported he could never drift again, leaving both him and Riko bereft. As Neil drove down the coast, blasting the AC and radio to stay awake while his mother secretly bled out next to him, the dj had interrupted the music to report that Kevin Day had moved to the Foxhole Shatterdome to train their broken pilots program. Neil had almost crashed the car. 

None of that media furor had come close to the reaction to Kevin announcing that he was able to drift again, and was looking for a new partner.

Averting his eyes, Neil ignores Kevin Day as he snatches his duffel. Even with the hair dye and colored contacts, Kevin will recognize him. It's only a matter of time and Neil needs to be far, far away before that happens. 

He’s taken too long, been too stupid, been too surpised. Wymack is in the doorway, blocking the exit. “You can’t be here,” Neil says, even though Wymack has definitively proven otherwise. “No one recruits from Millport.”

“And yet here I stand.” Wymack replies. “It was Kevin who noticed how much potential is in this town, but I didn’t really believe it was all one person at first. Why didn’t you sign your scores?”

“You have to leave.”

“Sure. As soon as you sign the contract and come to San Francisco to test compatibility.”  _ No.  _ It’s everything Neil had ever wanted. It’s something he could never have. 

He turns to Kevin a little desperately. “I’m not good enough to drift with you.”

“True,” Kevin speaks for the first time, “but irrelevant.” Suddenly Neil is ten years old again, blood pooling between his toes, willing Kevin not to puke or draw attention to them. Kevin tilts his head in what could almost be curiosity, “Why hide your potential? You could be great, but we almost didn’t find you.”

“There are a thousand other people who’d jump at the chance to drift with you, why don’t you go bother them?” Neil’s hand is cramping, he’s gripping the strap of his bag so hard. But Wymack is meandering deeper into the room, Neil just has to wait for him to fully clear the doorway. 

“We saw their scores,” Wymack says, “We chose you.”

_ Two more steps _ . “I won’t drift with Kevin.”

“You will.” Neil won’t. He knows they are incompatible, many things change with age and maturity, but drift compatibility is not one of them. At least Kevin doesn’t recognize him.  _ Wymack had said  _ three _ Jaegers. _

“Your scores should have been lost beneath all the other, signed scores. You’re lucky Andrew realized that all the scores coming out of this arcade were one person. You are too reckless, you risk your Jaeger unnecessarily. But your mind is quick and you are unpredictable. You’ll be death in a pilot's harness, with a little training.” Kevin holds out the tablet, ready for Neil’s biometrics. Once they’re in the system, that’s it. He’ll be right there to find, should anyone come looking. 

Neil wants to stay. He wants to sit down and sign the paperwork and go back to California and soak up every drop of this before they figure out that he and Kevin aren’t compatible. But if he goes, his face will be out there, they might even try to find him his own partner and eventually they’ll find a match. You can’t lie to a drift partner. 

There is no part of Neil Josten that is not a lie. 

Neil Josten will never get in a real Jaeger. This is a good lesson for him to learn. Now he knows that scores are recorded and sent to Shatterdomes even if he doesn’t sign or save them. He will never get in another simulator. 

Wymack has stepped away from the door. Neil takes his chance and bolts. He has surprise on his side and even if he didn’t Neil clocks a four minute mile and his reflexes are one of the things that caught Kevin’s eye. No one has ever caught Neil when he’s running. 

But Neil forgot one thing. He shouldn’t have, but Neil has been doing things he shouldn’t do all year. When Kevin announced that he was rejoining the pilot’s program, he wasn’t the only new Fox joining the line. He was accompanied by Andrew Minyard, a former foster kid with a violent juvenile record, who was rumored to be his new drift partner. It was impossible, of course, no one could drift when they were high, and Andrew Minyard was on court ordered medication after beating four men nearly to death in retaliation for them attacking his cousin. And yet the rumors persisted, perhaps because Kevin had not been seen without his grinning psychotic shadow in over a year. 

In hindsight, Neil should have expected him. 

But nothing could have prepared him for the sight of the five foot tall blond man, grinning in delight, as he swung a heavy iron wrench into Neil’s gut. 

“This is why we can’t have nice things, Minyard.” Neil vaguely heard Wymack say as black dots filled his vision. He passed out before he could hear Minyard’s response. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The response to this fic has been so fantastic! I'm so glad y'all are as excited by it as I am!

Consciousness returns slowly. Pain first, always pain first. Before he opens his eyes, Neil checks his limbs, locating the worst of his injuries to gauge how hard it will be to run, to escape whatever fresh hell has found him this time. His legs are fine, so are his arms and his hands. He has no broken bones, at least, none that will cause him any immediate problems, but his head is aching, and his stomach is a mess of pain. He thinks one or two of his ribs are cracked, which will make it difficult to run since he can’t breathe, he just hopes that he doesn’t have internal bleeding. 

Neil opens his eyes carefully, just enough that he can get his bearings without drawing attention. He’s in a hospital room, but there are no windows, instead all the light comes from the fluorescent lighting glaring down on him from the ceiling. He’s also not alone. The one uncomfortable looking chair in the corner is occupied by a kind looking woman in a lab coat. She smiles gently when she notices his eyes are open, and pours him a glass of water. “I’m Abby,” she tells him, slowly crossing the room towards him. “You’re safe now.”

Neil laughs at the thought of him being safe, but it hurts his torso so badly he chokes. Abby makes a noise and hurries forward to help him into a seated position. “Where am I?” he gasps, as soon as he has enough breath to do so.

“Foxhole Shatterdome,” she tells him, “David-” but he is no longer interested in what she has to say. Someone is in the doorway. A familiar looking man, all in black. Short and blond and-

“Oh,” the man says, “you’re awake,” he moves closer to peer at the monitors that are recording Neil’s vitals. They stay steady at his approach. He frowns. “Interesting, that you aren’t afraid of me.” 

“Why would I be afraid of you?” Neil asks, because he can’t imagine this man swinging a wrench, not without a much better reason than the one Neil gave him, at least. 

“Concussion?” the man asks, looking toward Abby. “Could explain the memory loss.”

Abby frowns, “he shouldn’t,” she says, peering at Neil’s eyes. He averts his gaze so she doesn’t notice that his contacts are colored. He’ll have to change them soon, they’re beginning to stick. He has extras in his-

“Where’s my bag?” he looks around wildly, then sighs and relaxes when he spots it on the table next to him. He pulls it onto his lap, he’s giving too much away about how important it is to him, but he can’t help it. “I don’t have memory loss,” he says to distract them, “Do you think that I think that  _ you’re _ Andrew Minyard?”

Not-Andrew looks at him for the first time. “Huh,” he says, but before he can say anything else, Wymack knocks on the doorframe and barrels in before he gets a response. 

“How are you feeling, kid?” he asks gruffly, although Neil Josten is nineteen years old. 

“Kidnapped,” Neil snaps back. Abby flinches, Not-Andrew snorts in what could be either disdain or scorn and Wymack runs a tired hand through his hair and sighs. 

“We won’t keep you here, if you don’t want to stay.” Wymack’s word choice is deliberate. As a commander, he absolutely could keep Neil here, especially with his pilot scores. Turns out, civil rights and personal freedom go right out the window in the face of the apocalypse. 

But that’s the problem. Neil’s scores. They are out there now. Sure, they are unnamed and unconnected and from a shit town that doesn’t even appear on any maps, but if Kevin and Andrew could put it all together and find him, it’s only a matter of time until someone else does too. Even if Neil leaves the country and never so much as looks at another simulator, his scores read like a snapshot of his brain. Anyone looking at them would know how he thinks, how he makes decisions, what makes him predictable. It makes running that much harder, makes being caught inevitable rather than just likely. In short, Neil is fucked. 

But Shatterdomes are some of the safest places on the planet, brutal security, mostly armed inhabitants and no one will look too closely at the scores of a pilot that’s been snapped up by another dome. 

“Everyone here is running from something. Everyone here is a fighter, everyone here has a past. I have all of their backs and I’ll have yours too. You can be safe here, for as long as you need. All you have to do is agree to stay and we can start trials when you can breathe properly again.” Wymack is so earnest, so heartfelt and confident Neil wants to trust him. He finds him leaning forward despite himself, for a moment almost believing he can have this. Safety, security, a cockpit in a Jaeger with someone who knows every piece of him beside him, ready to fight monsters. 

It’s a useless dream, but Neil can’t seem to tear it out of himself. “I’ll stay,” he says, sagging back into the pillows, “for now.”

Wymack looks at him, holding out a hand to shake. Neil doesn’t trust the hands of men old enough to be his father, but after eyeing it for a few heartbeats, he tentatively reaches out and shakes Wymack’s hand. 

“Right,” Wymack says as soon as he releases Neil’s hand, immediately stepping back out of his space. “I have some calls to make, we will start the trial’s on Monday, unless Abby says otherwise. Get some sleep, eat a goddamn sandwich or six and try not to cause me any more problems.”

Neil doesn’t need that long to recover, in fact he could absolutely go a few rounds right now, excitement slipping through his bloodstream.  _ It's not real _ , he reminds himself a bit desperately as he gets back into the bed. “Sleep,” Abby urges, dimming the lights, “there will be food when you wake up.”

Neil is foolish to trust any of them, but his eyes slip closed without his permission. He dreams of power and metal and blue, blue blood, seeping through his armor and burning his skin. 

\--

“Hey man,” the tall guy with the spiky hair says the next time Neil opens his eyes. “I’m Matt Boyd.” Neil fights his instinct to flinch away, disconcerted by the idea of people around him while he sleeps.

“I know who you are,” Neil mumbles instead. 

Mathew Boyd, partner of Danielle Wildes and pilot of Whiskey Glory, an ancient mark 2 with an impressive kill streak, sits at Neil’s bedside like they've known each other for years. Matt grins and offers his hand, unselfconsciously flashing his faded track marks. “You must be Neil Josten, I’ve heard your scores are off the charts. I’m looking forward to your trials, it’ll be a nice change to watch someone get to knock Kevin on his ass.”

Neil shakes his hand, slightly disturbed to realize that he might actually like the grinning pilot. “Hey- how are you feeling? Abby says I can give you a tour if you’re up to it.”

Neil can’t get out of the bed fast enough, making Matt laugh out loud. “I’m fine.” Neil shoves his feet into his shoes and hurries to the door. His ribs creak and ache, but nothing pops and he can breathe through the pain so he dismisses it. 

Outside the infirmary, Neil is greeted by a scene of barely organized chaos. People rush everywhere, mechanics and scientists and technicians and assorted military personnel, all going about their business. Neil stands at the side of the Shatterdome proper, ceiling stretching up almost endlessly. The interior of the building is unimaginably huge, and painted a garish orange and white color scheme, which makes it slightly less intimidating, but no less overwhelming. Everything is bright and airy from the skylights. Directly to the right of where Neil is gaping, five Jaegar’s stand in their scaffolding, despite only two having pilots. 

“You’ll get used to it,” Matt laughs, sliding into the driver's seat of what looks like a souped up golf cart. “Hop on, I’ll introduce you to the others.”

Neil doubts it, but he can’t find his voice to argue as he slides into the vehicle. It takes over five minutes to reach the other side of the hanger, which Matt spends telling him about the other pilots and teams. “Serenity Tango,” Matt says, pulling to a stop in front of the first Jaegar. “Mark 2. Don’t trust the rainbow color scheme, she’s a deadly machine. Nicky, he’s our ops director, calls her slice-n-dice, on account of all the blades. Renee Walker tested best with Mark 2’s, so she’ll pilot once she gets a partner.” Matt looks at him appraisingly, but whatever he’s looking for, he must not find it, because he shakes his head and drives a few hundred feet down the row until they get to the next Jaeger.

This one is newer, sleek and stylish with a clean design and a gray and blue color scheme. “Echo Six,” Neil says automatically, eyes devouring the machine. “Mark 4, piloted by Reynolds and Gordon.” 

Matt eyes him approvingly, “You know your shit.” Neil just shrugs, he can’t help it. With all his time spent devouring anything related to Kevin, it was impossible not to become familiar with the Foxhole Jaegers. On the far wall, the massive countdown clock chimes, announcing two full weeks since the last Kaiju attack. 

Matt keeps driving. “Striker Fox,” he says, leaning on the wheel as Neil cranes his head upwards. The Jaeger is painfully orange and clearly designed for speed and power. “Mark 3. She’s Kevin’s. Assuming you’re drift compatible, this’ll be you.” Neil doesn’t bother telling him that he can’t drift with Kevin, they’ll find that out soon enough, and Neil will become a mechanic if he can, but for now it’s nice to pretend. 

“Which one is yours?” Matt grins, pleased and easily distracted. He speeds over to the next machine. 

“Whiskey Glory,” he says, eyes wide with pride as he looks up at the towering mark 2. The Jaeger is old and obsolete, but in flawless condition, painted warm golden brown, like the drink she’s named after. “Moves like a dream and hits like nothing you’ve ever seen before. No fancy weapons for us, just raw physical power,” Matt mimes a few expert punches. Neil can’t help but smile at his enthusiasm, but before he can comment, the last Jaeger catches his attention. 

She's pitch black except for the words _Wretched Eden_ , scrawled in flashing silver on the left side chest panel. She’s shorter than the rest, but no less powerful. Neil gets out of the cart and walks closer to it almost helplessly. Her knuckles are reinforced for hand to hand combat and each wrist has several slits for deadly knives to unsheathe. “What is a mark 5 doing here?” Neil asks when Matt drives up next to him. 

He is visibly confused by Neil’s reaction, but before he can answer, an ear splitting alarm sounds, sending Neil scrambling for cover. “ _ Movement detected in the breach! I repeat, playtime is over assholes! Category II, crab-looking motherfucking. Codename: shoulda worn a condom- damn, Betsy, fine! Movement detected in the breach, Kaiju is a category II, codename: Torment. Whiskey Glory is on point, Echo-Six in the wings. Battle stations!” _

Matt immediately flies into action, whipping around to face Whiskey Glory. “That’s Nicky, he wouldn’t know how to be professional if his life depended on it, but he’s damn good at his job. He’s excited to meet you, by the way. You’ll have to get yourself back to the infirmary, do you remember the way?” he pauses only long enough to watch Neil nod before he jogs off towards his Jaeger, head tilted towards the technician who rushes up to talk to him. 

Neil watches breathlessly as mechanics and technicians swarm the Mark 2, Matt is grinning and calm as he’s ensconced in his suit. Neil looks away when a shorter woman hurries over, professional and fierce, gripping Matt’s hand with strong fingers, talking seriously to Wymack, who pats her shoulder with affection and pride. 

Neil knows the way back to the infirmary but he has no intention of returning there. Instead, he melts into the crowd and allows it to pull him over to the opposite side of the hangar, where he spots a stairwell. Neil slips into a stairwell and climbs up and up and up. He’s barely panting by the time he runs out of stairs and into a solid door clearly labelled “Roof Access, Area Prohibited”. Despite that rather stern warning, it opens surprisingly easily, as if the lock has been jimmied to the point of uselessness. 

Considering that a helicopter would be the only way to access the roof of this building, and any unfriendlies would be unceremoniously shot down before they could get close enough, Neil isn’t particularly worried by the broken lock. 

No, he’s far more captivated by the scene in front of him. Whiskey Glory is pacing back and forth across the mouth of the bay, almost a mile out from the Golden Gate Bridge. Hanging back, Echo-Six stands guard over the bridge, on the off chance that Torment defeats Whiskey Glory. That seems highly unlikely, Danielle Wildes and Matt Boyd are great rangers, and Torment is only a category 2, hardly a threat for such a seasoned team. 

As Neil watches, the ocean erupts as the Kaiju flings itself at Whiskey Glory. The announcer was right, Torment was a ‘crab looking motherfucker’, only fifty feet tall but at least a hundred feet wide, with an impenetrable looking hide and claws that would have no trouble crushing a tank. Neil holds his breath as Whiskey Glory goes down, but he shouldn’t have worried, within moments, one of those massive claws is wrenched from the Kaiju’s body and goes flying, Kaiju blue spraying across the waves, well lit by the sun setting in the background. 

That’s the problem with some of the mark I and mark II’s, designed before the full environmental impact of Kaiju blood was discovered or could be combatted. Later marks all feature weapons that cauterize as they wound, preventing the spread of the toxic, caustic liquid from killing the surrounding area. But Whiskey Glory is a bruiser, designed to wear Kaiju down and beat them to death, so her kills tend to be… messy. 

This one, as it turns out, is no different. It’s over relatively quickly, which is to be expected from an underpowered Kaiju. Torment’s remaining claw fastens onto one of Whiskey Glory’s arms, until it is cooked by the flamethrower in the other palm. The Kaiju wheels back, and Whiskey Glory goes in for the kill, flawlessly executing some of the shadowboxing Matt had demonstrated for Neil earlier. Absently, Neil remembers that Matt’s mom is a professional boxer, so he comes by that talent naturally. 

Another few moments and it's over, Torment struggling to stand on broken legs and collapsing, one last sickening crunch as Whiskey Glory breaks through that shell to crush it’s forebrain.

Neil whoops in excitement and adrenaline, but the noise is quickly swallowed by the vastness of the night and the wind. Neil sits down and watches absently as Whiskey Tango splashes through the Pacific to Echo-Six. The two Jaeger's fist bump, a move so unexpected that it startles a laugh out of Neil. They wade back to the Foxhole together as the black market scavengers converge on the massive corpse, still leaking toxic blood into the surrounding waters. 

_ I want to stay. _

Neil inhales deeply, savoring the faint tang of nicotine in the air. He’s become so used to scent, which had always clung to his mother that he hadn’t noticed it lingering since he had shoved his way out here before the fight. Neil looks around sharply, but he appears to be alone. 

The Foxhole Shatterdome is built like exactly that, a dome, situated directly on the bay. He is at the very top of it, a circular area just large enough for an emergency helipad. There is a low wall that separates the flat surface from the gradually rounding exterior, that suddenly drops as the building folds under itself. 

Near that wall sits a small pile of cigarette butts, one of which still smolders gently. Neil blinks, looks around again. There’s no one up here with him now, but clearly someone was, often and recently, gauging by the spread of butts and lit cherry. Neil lifts up the lit cigarette and brings it close to his face, taking one last inhale before snuffing it out and heading back downstairs. 

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes guys, its been a minute. 
> 
> I am OVERJOYED by the reaction to this fic!!!! Thank you to every single one of you who left kudos, commented and/or subscribed. I can't tell you what it means to me!
> 
> cw: I don't think there's much here, mentions of Mary's body????

Neil’s foot twitches in excitement as he sits on Abby’s padded table. “No pain?” she inquires, looking at him sternly over her glasses. She hangs her stethoscope back over her neck and gently presses on his ribs over his shirt. 

“Nope. I’m fine,” he isn’t even lying all that much. His chest and stomach are still a mess of bruises and broken skin, but his ribs no longer ache when he breathes. 

Abby looks at him with narrowed eyes. Neil blinks at her innocently, waiting for her decision. “Okay,” she sighs, “you’re clear. I’ll tell Wymack he can schedule your trials. But any pain and you pull back, got it?”

Neil hops off the table. “Okay, “ he lies easily. “Thanks Abby!” He jogs out of the room before she can change her mind. It's foolish to be so excited for something that will never come to be, but he can’t help it. Neil knows he can never step foot in a Jaeger, but even stepping into the ring against other pilots is enough to wipe that from his mind. He can pretend for a few more days.  _ He can. _

Matt Boyd and Danielle Wildes catch him in the mess hall a little later, eating his fruit with relish. Neither his life on the run nor his solitary existence in Millport had allowed Neil friends or fresh food, and Neil was discovering that he rather liked both. Matt and Dan slide across from him in their matching “Whiskey-Glory” jumpsuits and grins. “Look what I have!” Dan crows, waving a tablet under Neil’s nose.

“Kleptomania and a death wish?” Neil asks wryly. The tablet is Wymack’s, and he is fiercely protective of it. 

Matt snorts so spectacularly coffee shoots out of his nose and onto Dan’s toast. Dan enthusiastically wallops him on the back until he can breathe again and his eyes stop watering. “Smartass,” she scolds warmly. “It’s your match schedule. Wymack wanted me to go over it with you. Kevin and Renee are the only two pilots we have who are testing around your range. Well,” she frowns, “there’s one more, but that’s a lost cause for a few reasons. So eat quickly because when I last saw him, Kevin was already muttering about getting you into the ring with him.”

“You gotta hit him for me, Neil!” Matt begs. “Andrew won’t let any of us touch him, and he’s such a dick sometimes. There’s a lot of money riding on this match.”

Neil freezes, strawberry halfway to his mouth. “People are going to watch?” one of the first things he had learned upon his arrival was how much the Foxes, as they called themselves, loved to bet on any and everything. Nothing was too small or petty or inappropriate to gamble on, but for any wager to be settled, there needed to be at least two witnesses who had taken different sides. 

“Of course,” Dan says, oblivious to Neil’s discomfort. “I have money on Renee, no offense. Solidarity and all that.”

“Also she’s a badass. Don’t underestimate her,” Matt cautions. Neil doesn’t need the warning. Renee, who he had met only briefly, left him deeply unsettled. She radiated danger and carefully controlled viciousness under her unshakable veneer of calm kindness. 

Neil doesn’t like the idea of everyone watching him fight. The bow staff fights are used as a matching tool because of how revealing they are, and being known is one of the scariest things Neil can imagine, and his past is the stuff of nightmares. He’s still going to do it though. He’s already willingly jumped off the cliff, all he can do is smile and enjoy the fall before he’s a pancake. 

“You finished?” Matt asks, “We’ll walk you over.”

Neil pops one more berry in his mouth and nods. He stands up and they drop their trays off on a cart on the way out. Neil is already dressed in the Fox-orange jumpsuit given to all the pilots. He wears his zipped to his chin to hide his scars and with pride, even though he’ll never be able to serve that purpose. The emotion that had torn through him when he had walked into the tiny room assigned to him to find it folded neatly at the foot of his bed had nearly drowned him. He still hasn’t taken off the dog tags that had been pooled on top of it, stamped with his name and title. Neil Josten will forever be listed as a Jaeger pilot, even after he’s been replaced with a new name and a new city, part of him will live on, in this place. 

Matt and Dan chat cheerfully as they stride down the hallways, nodding and greeting countless people as they pass. Neil marvels at them, jealous of how  _ real _ they get to be unafraid and oblivious of anyone who might see them and remember them.  _ How nice it must be _ , he thinks as they enter the large training room,  _ to not be hunted. _

He freezes when he sees how crowded the room is. It seems like the entire Shatterdome is here. He had expected Kevin and Renee and Wymack and Andrew, since he seems incapable of letting Kevin out of his sight, and maybe a few of the other pilots but this is.... Everybody. He sees Nicky, the unprofessional coms operator brightly flirting with several of Wretched Eden’s mechanics while the tall blond he’s holding hands with looks on fondly. The sea of strangers parts and he sees Aaron looking shifty as he leans in close to a pretty woman who is also dressed as a medic. Allison smiles at Dan and Matt as they join her in talking to Renee, who is leisurely stretching. Seth Gordon stands with them, but his arms are crossed and he doesn’t look particularly interested in the conversation. 

Several people jostle Neil as they enter the room, some wishing him luck and gently punching his shoulder.  _ They all know who he is _ . He wants to run, he wants to bask in the prospect of being real. “Oh, Rabbit,” a bright voice says from behind him. “You can’t be thinking of running already, you haven’t even been hit yet!” Neil whirls around to see Andrew and Kevin in the doorway, Kevin looking determined and focused, Andrew sporting his artificial grin. “Wait,” he says, tapping his chin with his finger, “I remember now, you like to run  _ before  _ you get hit. Kevin dear, I might need to borrow your stick, it’s tradition you know.”

“It’s a bow staff!” Kevin snaps, tone aggrieved.

Neil bares his teeth at Andrew. “Listen up you failed pharmacological experiment-”

“Enough jabbering!” Wymack bellows, instantly silencing the din. Neil doesn’t know how to ignore angry men his fathers age so he immediately makes himself a smaller target and tries to make himself invisible. It’s a useless hope when he’s dressed in bright orange and everyone is here to see him, but old habits and all that. “Josten! Get up here! Day, you’re up first!”

Neil’s heart is pounding as he weaves through the crowd to the ring. He hasn’t done this since he was ten years old, and it's unbelievable that he’s going to be up against the same person as last time. Hopefully, Kevin won’t remember Neil’s fighting style. They won’t mesh well so there’s no chance of a neural handshake, but if Kevin remembers him, he could unmask Neil and get him killed. 

But it’s so worth it. As soon as Neil toes off his shoes and steps into the ring everything else falls away, lost in the brush of his fingertips against the smooth wood of the bow staff. It swishes through the air like an extension of his arm, even after all these years. Neil grins at Kevin and the other man’s eyes light up in return. Neil feels a pang of sharp grief over their incompatibility. Their shared passion and joy for Jaegers would have been breathtaking. 

That feeling is jolted out of him the moment Wymack signals them to start the bout. From the first steps they are awkward and out of sync, dancing to different music. They are both good, but their styles are jarring and discordant and it sets Neil’s teeth on edge. Neil is aggressive and instinctive, Kevin is aggressive and flawlessly trained. Neil’s advances are met with a bruising defense, but Neil’s too fast for Kevin to catch. Even so, Neil is hopelessly outmatched and too impetuous to play it safe so Kevin gets more hits in. Finally, Wymack calls a halt. 

Kevin is frowning in disappointment, a sentiment Wymack clearly shares. Neil shakes the achy numbness from his fingers and tries not to think about the likelihood that Wymack will drop him from the program if he doesn’t match with Renee. 

He doesn’t match with Renee either. Their bows barely even touch. There is something so disquieting about her that Neil can’t let her get close enough. He darts and dodges around her, knowing that if she catches him he’ll be pinned in an instant and he doesn’t fully trust that she won’t slit his throat. And there can be no compatibility with that level of distrust so Wymack calls it even faster than he did with Kevin. 

A laugh cuts through Neil’s frustration, bright and grating and false. It’s Andrew. He’s perched on the industrial railing at the top of the brief flight of stairs, next to Wymack. He’s supposed to be taking notes on the matches, but when he catches Neil eyeing his tablet, he turns it around with an exaggerated wink to reveal he’s just been working on an anatomically correct penis, large enough for Neil to see from ten feet away. 

It’s so infuriating that Neil wants to kill him. Andrew had scored so high when he was in juvie that Kevin and Riko Moriyama had recruited him for the Evermore Shatterdome in Japan. He hadn’t taken them seriously either, and had turned them down flat. Two months later he had almost beaten four men to death outside of some bar on the other side of the country and been drugged to the gills to control his “psychotic violent tendencies”. As long as he was high, he could never drift. The waste of it made Neil feel physically sick. 

“Hey, Asshole!” Neil snaps, swinging his bow staff over his shoulder. 

Andrew feigns exaggerated innocence and looks around and then back to Neil. “Who? Little old me?” 

“Emphasis on ‘little’, yeah you.” someone behind Neil chokes on a laugh and the whole room gets very quiet. 

“Hey, Neil, maybe you shouldn’t-” Nicky starts hesitantly, but Neil isn’t afraid of Andrew. All Andrew can do is hit him. 

“It’s easy to laugh at others from the sidelines. If you think you can do better, come down here and try. Or is it only fun to hit me when I’m unarmed?” 

Wymack sighs, and it occurs to Neil that he might not actually be allowed to challenge other potential pilots, even if they are assholes like Andrew.  _ Oh well, _ Neil’s whole life has been a series of broken rules and consequences and he won’t live long enough to change that. 

Andrew stares at Neil with  _ something _ in his eyes, head tilted as he considers him. But he can only fight off the drugs for so long before they take back over. He throws his head back and laughs, face contorted into a painful looking grin. “Neil,  _ Neil  _ Jos-ten, Jos-ten, just ten? Is that your IQ? It doesn’t matter, you don’t add up.”

“I’m not a math problem,” Neil replies through numb lips. If Andrew doesn’t believe him, if he goes digging…

“I’ll still solve you. Hit the other children, I have no more time for you today.” Andrew hops off the railing, puts his eyes on Nicky, Aaron and Kevin and saunters out of the room.

“What the fuck was  _ that _ ?” Allison mutters. 

Neil glares furiously after him even as the room empties around him. He stays to practice on his own long after everyone’s gone. 

-

Hunger is what finally forces Neil to stop. He drops by his room for a quick shower before heading to the mess hall. Kevin imperiously waves Neil over to the table he shares with Dan, Wymack and a distracted looking Andrew, who supervises his family two tables over. 

Nausea clenches Neil’s stomach. He suddenly wants to throw up all over his plate. He knew this was coming, knew this was just a dream he was borrowing. Wymack will tell him to leave, a pilot without a partner is useless anyway. He’s just not ready to go. He sits. 

“You feeling okay, kid?” Wymack asks gruffly, “you look a bit pale.”

“I’m fine,” Neil mutters, picking sunflower seeds off the top of his dinner roll and eating them. He can’t look the other men in the eye. Neil doesn’t want to see the disappointment in Kevin and Wymack’s faces, or the amused scorn that is doubtlessly spread plainly across Andrew’s. 

“Liar!” Andrew sings merrily, stealing the brownie square from Neil’s place. Neil thinks about protesting the theft, but he doesn’t like sweet things and it's really not worth the fight. He scowls though, just on principle. 

“It was a long shot you’d match with Renee, but I really thought you’d be compatible with Kevin,” Wymack grouses, taking a liberal pull from his flask. Neil tenses. He wants to shove his roll into his pocket, he’ll need all the food he can squirrel away when they kick him out. But Kevin is watching him oddly. It’s not fair that he’ll get another chance while Neil dies screaming, but at least one of them will make it. 

“I’m sorry,” Neil says, and suddenly he is. He wishes he could be a pilot so hard that he physically aches. He wishes he matched with Kevin, and Kevin had his back and would be able to handle his past and keep his secrets. But Kevin couldn’t even stomach that one dismemberment they witnessed when they were ten, there’s no way he could deal with the rest. But really, who could? “I’ll leave tonight.”

“Oh look, the rabbits running, what a shocking surprise. Who else is  _ stunned?” _

“Shut up Minyard. Josten, where do you think you’re going? You’re already registered as one of my pilots so it’s a court martial if you leave. I’ll just have to find you a partner too, plenty of unmanned Jaeger's to be filled.” Wymack frowns at Neil, but it doesn’t feel angry or threatening. 

“I can stay?” Neil can’t stop his voice from cracking. He grips his fork so hard it hurts his hand. 

“Yeah kid,” Wymack sounds tired and sad. “Of course you’re staying. If I didn’t discharge Renee or Kevin or Andrew, why would you think you’d be any different? No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to hear your bullshit.”

“I-” Neil’s voice cracks, he’s never imagined that they’d want to  _ keep him. _ “Thank you.”

“Pathetic,” Andrew grins, but it’s even more forced than usual. Behind the gleeful mania in his eyes there is  _ knowing,  _ as if he can see the conflict tearing Neil up inside, as if he knows what it feels like. It makes Neil feel distinctly uncomfortable; his skin heats up and his stomach clenches, he wants to look away, but dragging his eyes from Andrew's is simply impossible. 

“Come Kevin, I’ve lost my appetite,” Andrew deserts the table without even looking at his ward. Kevin mutters something unflattering, but follows Andrew without protesting. Wymack sighs. Neil watches them go, and then butters his roll. 

\--

Hours later Neil creeps up to the roof. From the northern corner he has a view of the beach where his mother’s bones still lie. She’s gone, he knows that, but seeing that beach brings her back in all her glory. Rage and blood and love and fear, all tinged with smoke. He tells himself he’s going to run, he reminds himself that his father is always nipping at his heels and that standing still is suicide. None of that matters. He’s going to stay. He owes his mother the truth and an apology. 

She died to save him in vain, the price far too dear for something he’s just throwing away.  _ Sorry mom, _ he thinks, pushing open the heavy door. 

He freezes, heart thumping unevenly in his chest. Even in the darkness, even though he has a doppelganger, even missing his smile, Neil recognizes Andrew’s silhouette immediately. Neil can’t avoid him, he’s sitting on the ledge of the roof facing Mary’s beach, kicking his heels against the smooth concrete and smoking. Neil remembers the small pile of smoldering cigarette butts he had noticed the last time he was up here and realizes that he always knew this was Andrew’s place. 

“Who told you I’d be here?” Andrew’s voice is flat and bored, and he doesn’t take his eyes off of the dark horizon. Neil, who had turned away, sighs and steps a few feet closer to the other man. He’s not up for a fight, not when he’s so desperately clinging to reasons to stay. 

“I’m not here for you,” he replies, leaching as much of the antagonism out of his voice as he can. Neil Josten is quiet and unobtrusive, but something about Andrew makes him forget that. 

Andrew finally slants him an empty glance. “Tell me something I believe.”

“Just to make you happy? I don’t think so.”

Andrew pulls out a new cigarette and chucks the other one over the side. “Fair enough. I’ll trade you truth for truth.”

Neil leans into the cloud of smoke and inhales Andrew, exhales his mother. “My mom's ashes are on that beach,” he nods his head at the coastline across the bay. “I never thought I could stand to come back to this state, until I did.” It’s not a lie, but it's hardly a truth either. 

Andrew passes Neil the cigarette and doesn’t look at him while he lights another, taking a long pull from it and letting the smoke slowly leak from his mouth in tendrils before he breathes out. He points towards Oakland. “I was sent to juvie in Oakland. You can’t see it from here, but I swore I’d never come back to California when I left. Breaking promises to me has always been easy, you see.”

Neil thinks that Andrew’s truth was as full of holes and hidden meanings as his was, so he doesn’t challenge it. He sits gingerly on the floor, back to the ledge Andrew’s perched on. He’s careful to keep a few feet of distance between them. He’s content to let the silence grow and watch the smoke drift up until it vanishes. 

It’s an unspoken truce, and one that will disappear with the dawn, when Andrew takes his drugs. He still feels lighter, to have one truth between them. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!!!
> 
> let me know what you think!!


	4. Chapter 4

“Again!” Kevin orders, glaring at Neil. Neil is panting as he pulls off his helmet, sweat dripping down his forehead and his temples pounding with a persistent headache. Consistent simulated drifts will do that. Kevin clearly doesn’t give a shit. “You got lucky with Thornripper, but if you tried that in real life it would squash you like a bug."

“I got the kill didn't I?” Neil snaps through gritted teeth. He never thought he would get tired of drifting with simulators, especially the high-end military grade ones Wymack has access to. And he’s not, really, he’s more tired of Kevin’s arrogance and constant criticism of everything Neil does. Kevin is one of the most talented, successful and famous pilots ever to grace the inside of a Jaegar. Neil already know’s he isn’t worthy of cleaning Kevin’s gear, much less training with him. But Kevin’s charisma is clearly limited to strangers with cameras, because all Neil wants to do is hit him until he shuts up. 

“Wow, Kevin, even the drift-junkie wants to punch you. So much for all that media training, hmmm?” Andrew drawls from the corner. “Break time, methinks, before I let him.” Without waiting for his errant ward, Andrew leaves the room. 

“No way!” Kevin protests, “Neil, your attacks are sloppy and far too reckless -” Neil puts the helmet on the stool behind him, wipes his forehead with the back to his hand and follows Andrew out of the door. Behind him, Kevin lets out a stream of complaints before following them to the mess hall.

Neil’s days and nights have taken on a routine over the last few weeks. He spends his mornings running around the Shatterdome until his thighs ache. He trains with Kevin for hours, his training sessions only broken for sporadic meals, usually with Matt and Dan and occasionally with the other pilots and their support teams. It’s surprising, how much he enjoys their company and easy acceptance. He’s never had friends before. He often finds himself leaning in to Neil Josten, wishing he was all he says he is. 

But most surprising of all is how he spends his nights now. No matter how often he tells himself it’s stupid and wasteful and risky, each night finds him on the rooftop, sharing cigarettes and silence with Andrew, when he’s off his drugs. _ It’s strange _ , Neil muses as he bites into an apple and watches with fascinated disgust as Andrew eats his way through an entire pint of double-chocolate ice cream,  _ how different Andrew is when he’s off his meds. _

Andrew and Neil don’t talk about their midnight routine during the days anymore than they talk about their days when they're on the roof. They exist side by side, but never touching. It’s a balance that can’t last with how little Andrew trusts Neil around his people and how many lies Neil clings to, but he can’t bring himself to do anything about it besides hold his breath and hope they can keep it up for just a little while longer. 

Eventually, Andrew will grow bored of watching Neil and waiting for him to slip up. He’ll try to break Neil, and when he discovers that he can’t, Andrew will make Neil leave. And Neil wants to  _ stay. _

“There you are,” Wymack says gruffly, sitting down besides Kevin hard enough to rock the bench. “We leave at 3 tomorrow morning. Do you have any questions, Josten?”

“About what?” Neil asks around his apple, looking curiously around at Kevin, Wymack and Andrew, who begins to laugh. 

“You didn’t tell him?” Wymack asks Kevin, who shrugs and shovels another spoonful of his brown rice protein bowl into his mouth. 

“What’s to tell? He’s coming.” Kevin shoots Neil a hard look. “Right, Neil?”

Neil quirks an eyebrow, bad feeling brewing in his stomach. “Coming where?”

“To L.A. Kevin has an interview with Kathy Ferdinand and it wouldn’t hurt you to get a bit of media training.” 

“On account of you being such an asshole,” Andrew whispers loudly enough for everyone to hear. “He’s coming, Commander.” 

“I don’t see why-”

“Because you need constant supervision and I’m going,” Andrew says, eyes flat like a sharks behind his smile. Neil remembers the whistle of the wrench before it sank into his stomach, remembers Andrew’s leer as he blacked out. Those memories suddenly replace the smoky image of Andrew Neil has now, product of quiet, sleepy evenings looking at the dark waters or the shining city across the bay. 

“Fine,” Neil bites out, feeling like a rat in a glue trap, not quite ready to pull off his limbs and skin to try and escape yet. 

“See, Commander? No problem! Kevin and I will make sure he’s all bright tailed and bushy eyed in the morning!” 

It's nothing less than a threat. 

\--

When Neil goes to the roof that night, Andrew is nowhere to be found. He waits for a while, fingers tapping on the cold guard rail for a cigarette. He looks out over the water to the beach where he left his mother and tries not to remember the smell of her burning burning hair, discernible even as she cooked. He rubs his thumb over his smooth pointer finger. He had burned it badly the first time he had reached into the car to pull out her bones. His fingerprint had never come back even after the skin healed. One final gift from Mary.

Without Andrew around to distract him, the memories are overwhelming. He goes back downstairs to his empty room with the empty bunk that’s set aside for the drift partner he’ll never have. 

Neil freezes as soon as he pushes open the door. There’s no reason to, nothing he can point to and say ‘this is wrong’, but Neil is a ball of paranoia bound together by scars and survival instincts _and he knows_. He shuts the door behind him with a soft click and leans against it, trying to control his breathing. If it was his fathers people they would have waited for him. He reaches out and flicks the light switch, disappearing all the shadows big enough to hide in. Neil eyes the bathroom door and inches to the side. He grabs the bow-staff that’s leaning against the corner and holds it in front of him in a defensive position as he creeps towards the door. He kicks it open and prepares for an attack. None comes. The bathroom is empty. 

Neil sags, dropping the stick and flopping down on his bed. His heart is trying to beat itself out of his chest. He rolls over onto his stomach and pulls out his duffel bag. When he had first woken up in the Thunderdome’s med center and found his stuff undisturbed, he had counted himself lucky and promised himself he would get his hands on a safe as soon as he could. But the Foxes have disarmed him with their acceptance and respect and the safe had begun to slip down his priority list. 

As soon as Neil slides down the zipper, he realizes what a mistake that was. Someone has gone through his stuff _. _ The shirts are all in the right order, he realizes as he pulls them out and throws them to the side. His heart is pounding again, he can’t breathe around the ball of nausea blocking his throat. The shirts are in the right order and folded precisely the right way, except for the tags. He always keeps the tags on his shirts flipped under themselves, and now they lay flat. 

Neil’s digging fingers meet the smooth plastic of his binder and he yanks it open, running his fingers across the article cutouts of Kevin and Riko. It looks like something a crazed fan would carry around, something embarrassing enough to make anyone nosy enough to open it look away before they notice the money and currency certificates slipped between the pages, or the coded telephone numbers and coordinates. 

The fan journal is only half a lie. Neil picked Riko and Kevin because he is obsessed with them, because he’s read every article and seen every picture. How could he not when in another life he would be standing next to them, wearing the 3 on his skin instead of Jean Moreau? It’s an effective distraction, but it dooms him even more than the money and codes. 

Because there is only one person who could have gone through Neil’s stuff, and Andrew does not take threats to Kevin laying down. Neil is so  _ stupid _ for being lulled into any form of complacency. Andrew, it seems, has grown bored of simply waiting for Neil to slip up and decided to add pressure. 

Neil should let it go. He should pretend he doesn’t notice the invasion of privacy, he should pretend that he is fine and that everything is fine. That is what Neil Josten would do.  _ One two three four five six seven eight nine ten. Eins zwei drei vier funf sechs sieben acht neun zehn. un deux trois quatre…  _ The door slams open hard enough to chip against the cement walls as he storms out of his room. The hallway is sparsely populated so he only receives a handful of surprised looks as he stomps down the hall. “What’s his damage?” Aaron asks Nicky as Neil shoves by him. The words are spoken in German and Neil almost freezes, surprise jolting him out of his blind rage before he realizes that Aaron has not meant him to understand. Aaron is nothing to Neil, so he ignores them. 

“Shit!” Nicky says, “Aaron he’s going to Andrew’s room- shit. Neil!” Nicky isn’t fast enough to catch up, even if he hurries. 

Neil turns the corner, spots the door of the room Andrew shares with Kevin. He loses his chance to kill Andrew mere steps away from the door when the klaxon bell sounds, turning the entire Shatterdome into noise and chaos as it prepares to send Matt and Dan out to defend the Bay Area from yet another Kaiju. 

Neil is swept away by the crowd as people rush to their battle stations. Neil shoves his way through the river of bodies and leans back into a corner away from the chaos and crowd. Across the hallway, he spots Andrew, who watches him with a threatening tilt to his head. Andrew stands in the middle of the hallway, but no one dares to bump him or meet his eyes. They part around him with nervous glances. Neil grits his teeth and glares back,  _ I know what you did _ . 

Andrew grins, a vicious bloodthirsty thing, and raises two fingers to his temple in a threatening and dismissive salute. 

_ One two three four five- _

Andrew vanishes into the crowd. 

\--

Neil’s room has no windows, so he always wakes to darkness. It still feels different when it’s 2:30 in the morning. The pounding on his door, which had startled him from his sleep, sounds again. Dread sinks deep into Neil’s bones. He wishes there was a window he could sneak out of. Neil shouldn’t get this close to a camera. He needs to run, now, today. Before he gets on the helicopter. Or maybe he can lose himself in the crowds of Los Angeles? He needs- “Neil!” Kevin’s voice is muffled, whether by the door or exhaustion Neil isn’t sure, but regardless, it doesn’t detract from Kevin’s arrogant imperiousness at all. 

Despite himself, despite  _ knowing better _ , Neil hastily slides a fresh pair of tinted contacts over his eyes and zips himself into his jumpsuit before opening the door with a scowl. The monsters, as Allison likes to call them with a snide twist of her lips, are waiting outside his door for him. Aaron looks scornfully at Neil and returns his attention to his phone, Nicky grins at him brightly, Kevin is sagging against the doorway, eyes heavy but still irritated. Andrew is blank and sober and he flicks his eyes over Neil with no more interest than he would a plain wall. If Neil didn’t rely on his instincts so fiercely it would be impossible to imagine someone so apathetic to him taking the time and effort to rifle through his things so effectively. It’s enough to reignite the spark of fury in Neil’s gut. 

Neil opens his mouth to say something, but luckily for Andrew, Wymack’s gruff voice interrupts. “Move your asses soldiers! I’m not getting any younger waiting on you useless idiots!”

“You’re certainly not getting prettier either,” Nicky mumbles under his breath as he rolls his eyes. “Unlike you Neil,” he says louder, eyes lighting up with cheer and faintly with something Neil can’t quite recognize, but that makes him slightly uncomfortable. “This early in the morning in that nasty jumpsuit, but still, can I just say  _ damn-” _

“Not if you want to keep your tongue,” Andrew says casually, not even bothering to glance over his shoulder as he herds Kevin towards the commander. 

“ _ Stingy,” _ Nicky mutters to Aaron in german. 

“Well, don’t be gross!” Aaron snaps back in the same language. 

Neil trusts none of them with his back, so he waits until the cousins pass him, still bickering in German, before following them up the stairs to the roof. 

It’s still dark and cold outside, true night with no hint of the coming dawn. Renee, Dan and Matt are already waiting on the roof, having apparently decided to join Andrew’s lot for the trip south. Dan and Matt look tired and a bit bruised from their fight last night, but their smiles are as wide and welcoming as always when they see Neil. It seems like only Allison and Seth plan to stay behind in case of an attack. It’s a bit disconcerting to see a place that Neil has come to think of as his so heavily and casually populated. Andrew gives no indication that he’s ever been up on the roof before as he pointedly ignores the other pilots and shoves Kevin into one of the helicopters. 

Neil thinks he may have muttered a greeting to Renee as he passed her, but her gentle smile only warms slightly. It's a reaction Neil has never seen Andrew glean before, but ultimately, it means nothing to him and he dismisses it from his mind. 

The helicopters beat the air loudly enough to prevent most conversation from carrying, and Wymack gestures at Abby, sending the monsters towards one helicopter and the others towards the second one with the medic. Neil moves to join Matt, who grins at him and hands him a warm cup of coffee. 

A hand snags Neil’s collar and he uses the jerk backwards as leverage, ducking under the arm to catch his attacker by the throat. Andrew doesn’t flinch away from Neil’s suffocating grip, but the familiar prick of a knife to Neil’s ribs causes him to clench his teeth against the instinctive, dizzying terror. Out of the corner of his eye, Neil sees Dan and Matt surge forward, only to be held in check by Renee. Neil glares at Andrew, who stares back, flat and cold. “You’re coming with us,” Andrew says, enunciating clearly so that Neil can read his lips. 

“Fuck you,” Neil replies, just as distinctly, loosening his grip on Andrew’s throat one finger at a time. The blade vanishes, leaving behind only the faintest trickle of blood. 

“Touch me again and I’ll remove your fingers one at a time,” Andrew says, a dark promise that Neil believes. 

“I’m not the one who needs to learn to keep his hands to himself,” Neil replies, meaning dripping from his words. As stupid as he is, Neil wants Andrew to know that he knows what he did. 

“What the fuck?” Nicky’s voice is loud enough to be heard over the spinning blades. Neil ignores him and dodges Matt and Dan as they reach out to pull him towards their helicopter. He pretends not to understand their urging and follows Aaron into the helicopter with an exasperated Wymack. He needs to deal with Andrew if he’s going to stay, and avoiding him is not a solution. The threat of that knife, so close to his already scarred skin keeps his breath trapped at the base of his throat, his anger the only thing keeping his panic at bay. He should really be used to knives by now. 

As he gets in the chopper, Neil sees Kevin pass Andrew a single pill. Andrew stares at it for a long moment, rolling it between his fingers before purposefully placing it on his tongue and swallowing it dry.  Neil accepts the headset Kevin thrusts at him and finds his seat. To his great irritation, Andrew slides behind him and immediately leans in close enough that Neil can hear him, even over the overwhelming noise as the helicopter lifts off. Before Andrew can whisper whatever poison he has planned into Neil’s ear, Neil turns. “If you ever touch me or my stuff again, I’ll kill you.”

“Such suspicion in one so young, one really must wonder about your parents. Your paranoia is getting out of hand. Why on earth would I be interested in your private belongings? Do you have something to hide? Listen hard, useless rabbit: I do not care about you or your shit.” Andrew’s voice is deadly as quicksilver and just as smooth. His breath fans across Neil’s neck, making him shiver. The back of his chair does not seem sturdy enough to protect his back from this man. 

Neil should back down, make himself small and duck Andrew’s interest. It would be easy enough with Andrew’s medication driving him to distraction. Unfortunately, Neil doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. “I don’t believe a word you say.”

“Believe what you will,” Andrew says carelessly. “You won’t be around long enough for it matter.”

“You gonna make me leave?” Neil challenges,  _ shut up shut up shut your mouth. _ “What do you think will happen to Aaron and Kevin when you’re court martialled for going off your medication and attacking another pilot?” 

“Be careful, Neil, you’re making me want to break you.” Andrew replies, smile already beginning to crawl across his face. 

“You?” Neil sneers, “you don’t know how.” 

“Oh Neil,” Andrew’s voice sounds so delighted Neil knows he’s made a mistake. Neil’s stomach feels like it’s filled with acid. He wants to throw up. He wants to stitch his mouth shut. Andrew has the advantage here, and nothing to stop him from throwing Neil out like so much garbage. “That sounds so very much like a challenge. Mother may I?”

“I don’t believe your mother cares much what you do. Rumor is you killed her.”

“I don’t have a mother, but I’ll kill you too if you aren’t  _ very  _ careful and  _ very  _ honest when I ask you all the questions I’m going to.” Andrew laughs, and the conversation ends as he leans back just as suddenly as he’d leant forwards.

Wymack catches his eye from next to the pilot and Neil shakes his head at him, freezing under the sheen of sweat that coats his body. His pulse is pounding and his world narrows down to his harsh breathing as he tries to keep his terror under control. 

Behind him, Kevin begins to snore. 

  
  



	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left kudos or a comment! 
> 
> I'm on Tumblr now elesary

It’s raining when they land. Because it’s Southern California, the weather means that traffic is even worse than it usually is, because Angelino’s absolutely lose their shit in the face of a light drizzle. Neil isn’t finished yelling at Andrew, but it’s impossible when he’s on his meds and already distracted keeping his family close in a strange environment.

Neil grits his teeth to keep his mouth shut and glares out the darkened window of the SUV Wymack heards them into. The sky is dark gray and each raindrop catches the headlights and throws lights against the honking cars and swaying palm trees. Neil has never been to L.A. before, but he and his mom were on their way here, when she died. 

Andrew is having fun smacking Kevin around to keep him awake, batting his head from side to side like a cat with a toy. Kevin is irritated and angry, but he does nothing to stop Andrew, he is so used to being a plaything to a stronger personality. Nicky keeps up a steady stream of chatter about the morning show Kevin is going to be on, apparently he and Erik watch it together each morning. “She’s a bitch,” Nicky confides, “but she’s great T.V.”

Aaron ignores everyone and texts on his phone. Andrew glares at him periodically, before allowing his attention to be pulled back to Kevin each time he slumps. The radio drones on, listing the cities that had faced Kaiju attacks overnight - Ho Chi Minh City, Singapore, Yokohama, Melbourne - and LA. Neil frowns and remembers the chaos that had swarmed the coast as they dipped under the clouds above Malibu. Kevin tries valiantly to rally enough to hear the report, but Andrew changes the channel to something angry and Kevin leans back with a grumble. 

Because of the traffic, they are late to the studio. They are greeted by impatient PA’s huddled under oversized and highly unnecessary umbrella’s who immediately pull Kevin towards them, talking a mile a minute frowning critically at his clothes. Immediately, Kevin’s face transforms into the picture of friendly professionalism. 

Neil can’t hide his flinch when a particularly ambitious looking PA reaches for him. “You're late,” The PA accuses, tugging insistently on Neil’s arm. 

“Get off of me!” Neil snaps, wrenching his arm away. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Kevin looks over at Neil with a disapproving frown, as if he has any ground to stand on about being rude to people. “You need to change your clothes, Neil,” he says. Somehow Neil hears him over the pounding of blood in his ears. “You can’t go on national television looking like  _ that. _ ”

From somewhere very, very far away, Neil hears Nicky’s cheer of “here, here!” but all he can do is breathe. 

“No! _ ” _ Neil snaps, tongue tripping over the word as terror freezes his blood. 

Kevin’s voice stops him cold. “If you do not do this interview, I am done with you,” he snaps, tone haughty and arrogant. “You will not find a partner if you hide in the corner like a wounded creature. If you do not wish to be a pilot, we are done. I do not have time for children who waste my time.”

Neil longs to point out the irony of Kevin pointing out someone else’s cowardice. Behind him, Andrew cackles, the sound so shuddersome that it distracts Neil from his panic. 

“That’s cold, Kev,” Matt says, eyeing the other pilot critically. Renee presses a warm drink into Neil’s hand as a slender woman with a cold smile saunters up to the group in a cloud of sharp floral perfume. 

“Kevin!” she purrs, leaning in to kiss the air next to his face. 

“Kathy,” Kevin greets, face relaxed and smile genuine. He is charming and modest and engaging. America’s favorite celebrity, all the more appealing for his tragedy. Neil wants to gag. “It’s been too long.”

“Oh my god, I forgot about that,” Dan mutters behind them, muffling her words behind her coffee.

“It really has,” Kathy agrees, before her eyes flick over Neil. “Neil Josten,” she says, stepping forward and reaching for Neil’s hand. He tenses, but Kevin elbows him sharply enough that he lets her grab him. “You must be so excited! As of this morning, more than five million people have seen the videos! Everyone is so curious, my Twitter is filled with questions from your fans!”

“What,” Neil manages through numb lips, “Are you talking about?”

“You mean Kevin hasn't told you?” Kathy sounds delighted, moreso when she notices Neil’s discomfort. He looks around for an explanation, some of the Foxes look confused, others look uncomfortable. “Kevin uploaded your scores and some training videos last night. You’re famous, Ranger!”

Neil goes numb. The only thing Kathy could have said that would have filled him with more horror is “you’re father’s here!” but really, it's all the same thing.  _ Five million people _ , he’s already been found. Neil looks at Wymack helplessly, he wants to feel betrayed, but all he feels is empty. 

It’s their job to find him a partner, it’s not their fault it's going to get him slaughtered. 

“Oh,” Kathy gasps, looking at her wrist, “would you look at the time! I’ll see you gentlemen on set!” She smiles like she’s won something and drifts away. 

“Neil!” Matt is saying something, Wymack is frowning in concern. Andrew has stopped laughing, and he looks at Neil so knowingly he has to look away. For a moment, Neil wonders if he’s sober, but he watched Andrew take his pill less than an hour ago. 

Neil focuses on Kevin, who grips his wrist impatiently and tugs him towards the building. “What have you done?” Neil asks, but he follows helplessly. What else is there? It’s done, and it’s over and he’s already dead. Why not cling to this dream with bleeding fingernails until it’s violently torn from him? His father is not a ranger, his father probably has fantasies about ruling his domain in a post Kaiju apocalypse. He does not watch morning TV. 

It’s a stupid fantasy, but Neil buys into it whole heartedly as he’s handed new clothes and has his face dabbed and sponged and painted. 

“Remember,” Kevin says, when they are standing side by side looking at themselves in the mirror. “This is about us, not about Kathy. Follow her lead, but don’t let her dominate.”

“Lie,” Neil whispers, looking at himself with muted horror. His hair is dark, his eyes are muddy,  _ he’s going to be fine. _

“Lie?” Kevin frowns, “Why would you lie? She’s only going to talk about your scores and compatibility. Use her to help you.”

“To what end, Kevin? You said yourself that I’m too reckless to get into a real Jaegar, that I would destroy the machine and likely my partner. Why am I here?” The words are pathetic and irresistible and Neil can’t bite them down. 

Kevin looks down on him with a frown. “You are here because when you learn to listen to me and trust me to train you, we will be the best pilots in the Pacific. We will be able to hold the entire west coast. But we are  _ nothing _ until we find someone compatible. What are you going to tell Kathy?”

“That I hate you,” Neil tells him helplessly. What is it about Kevin’s faith in him that makes Neil throw  _ everything  _ away for it?

“I  _ just  _ told you not to lie!” Kevin snaps, already back to being exasperated with Neil. 

“I’m not lying!”

“Of course you are, if you really hated me, Andrew would have tossed you out of the helicopter.” Kevin sounds so sure of himself that Neil can barely breathe through the jealousy.  _ What would it be like, _ he wonders,  _ to have someone protect him so viciously? _

“One day you’ll have to tell me how you got him to agree to be your guard dog,” Neil tells him, but it’s baseless curiosity. Neil won’t live long enough to get his answer. 

“I know what he wants,” Kevin replies instantly.

Neil opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, another PA sweeps Kevin away, towards the stage. The T.V. on the wall clicks on, playing an obnoxiously cheerful tune and Kathy Ferdinand walks onto the sound stage, done up to look like a cheery living room. The furniture looks hard and uncomfortable, but Kathy’s smile doesn’t slip as she greets the crowd and sits down, placing a self-branded coffee mug on the table at the perfect angle for the cameras to read her name. 

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen! I know it’s early to be up on a Saturday,” Kathy pauses to yawn delicately into the back of her hand. A few people in the live audience chuckle. “-but we’ve got a fantastic show for you today. As we all know,” Kathy’s voice drops to convey how serious she wants everyone to think she is, “our world is at war. For those of us who live near the Pacific coastline, we have frequent reminders. Just this week there have been attacks on Honolulu, Anchorage, San Diego, San Francisco… and just this morning Long Beach was almost torn apart by Clawfist, one of the first category five monsters to reach our shores!”

Neil shudders, unable to control his reaction. Kaiju are monsters, horrific bastardizations of mostly aquatic creatures already found on earth. They rarely look the same or act in any distinguishable ways, which makes them almost impossible to categorize, so instead of being sorted by size, shape or region, they are given a number that corresponds with their  _ lethality. _ Category fives are rare, and to date none have been brought down without significant loss of life- including the rangers and Jaegers sent out against them. 

“Clawfist was finally put down by the combined efforts of Gift Horse and Smiling Witch-” Behind Kathy, the big screen shows grainy footage of two battered Jaeger’s desperately struggling to subdue the massive Kaiju. Clawfist is a sickening mixture of a gorilla and crab and the audience gasps as Gift Horse is taken down in the Kaiju’s death throes. The video has no sound, but Neil can almost hear the scream of metal tearing apart, lost to the writhing bubbles as the cockpit floods. “-Our deepest condolences, and thanks, go out to the family of Ranger Peters, who will be honored at Memorial Gardens this Sunday. His partner, Ranger Knox, is stable, but still under observation. Layla Dermot and Sara Alvarez of Smiling Witch were uninjured and due back on patrol early next week after repairs are complete. In other news-” the lights brighten and Kathy’s cheery smile returns. “We have a few heroic guests of our own in the studio today, everybody put your hands together for Ranger Kevin Day!”

Neil has to look away as the audience cheers and the music booms merrily through the speakers. He doesn’t really care about other people the way he’s supposed to- that's been long beaten out of him, but this is a sickening display of levity in the face of death. It’s as if the Ranger was in a video game or lost a sports game. As if Jeremy Knox isn’t trying to recover from part of his brain being ripped  _ screaming _ from his head. As if he didn’t feel his partner die. As if there isn’t an empty casket being prepared for burial. Neil will never know how that feels, but even he isn’t cold enough to treat it so lightly. 

The fact that Kevin looks vaguely sick behind his smile and easy banter with Kathy only makes Neil feel a little bit better. But rumor is, Kevin’s a little broken too. 

“So Kevin, can I call you Kevin?” Kathy simpers as Kevin makes a show of getting comfortable on the couch. “The last time I saw you was a year ago, after you defended Sendai from Lightmaw. I have to admit, Kevin, that it utterly breaks my heart to see you here today all by yourself. We were all _so_ devastated when we heard about your breakdown. I must admit, I still see you as one half of a whole!”

Kevin laughs beneath his tight eyes. “At least I have room to stretch out now,” he makes a show of straightening out his limbs and taking up more of the couch. The audience loves it, laughing and clapping. 

“So,” Kathy says when the audience quiets back down. “Catch us up on all we’ve missed! Why did you make the decision to leave Evermore for - and I mean no slight to your new Shatterdome - Palmetto? I understand that you originally came on to train potential Rangers, but once you learned you were able to drift again, why stay? Every Shatterdome around the Rim must have made you offers!”

“Commander Wymack did his Ranger training with my mother down in Guayaquil, before she was sent to Tokyo. Even after her accident, he kept in touch with me.” Kevin’s face darkens and he clenches his hands in his lap. “Last December, after Strikerbreak, I thought I could never drift again. Commander Wymack was the only person I thought to turn to - he and his team accepted me with a second thought and I enjoy training with them.”

Kathy looks sympathetic, reaching out to touch him, as if with empathy. “I’ll admit it - I thought you would return to Tokyo this fall, when you announced you would seek a partner. Regardless, your recovery is remarkable, and we are all breathlessly waiting for you to form a new partnership!”

The crowd cheers. The door opens and Neil blinks at the stage hand that has come to fetch him. He’s almost forgotten that he’s supposed to get in front of the camera too. 

“Speaking of looking for new partners,” Kathy says when Neil toes the line just outside of the sight of the audience and camera. “Let's talk about Neil Josten!”

_ Lets not, _ Neil thinks, a little hysterically. 

“What were you thinking?” Kathy asks, “recruiting someone as unknown as Neil?”

“Kathy,” Kevin says, almost condescendingly, “how much do you know about simulator scores?”

Kathy shoots a fake embarrassed glance at the audience. “Not much I’m afraid, my scores were never very good,” she admits.

_ Shocking, _ Neil thinks, cruel tilt lifting one side of his mouth. 

Kevin laughs gently, with her. “Well, take a look at this.” He turns his attention to the screen behind them and Neil goes numb as the video recording of his battle with Lightmaw begins to play. The footage is mostly focused on the battle, but external shots of Raven Black taking down the Cat. 5 are interspersed between shots of Neil’s face and his expression. He looks fierce and heartbroken and exhilarated. Neil feels like his skin has been stripped off, leaving quivering flesh to be poked at by impatient and curious strangers. Somewhere in the audience, Andrew snickers.

“This,” Kevin says, he scoots forward on the couch and thrusts a hand out towards Neil’s blown up face. The video stops there, at Neil’s moment of triumph, when Lightmaw slides off the stub of Raven Black’s arm and slumps, still sparking electricity, into the Pacific. “Is what I was thinking when I recruited Neil.” There’s a beat of silence as everyone tries to see what Kevin means. Neil pulls at the yellow gaffers tape line he’s stuck behind with his shoe. Andrew stops laughing. 

“You can’t teach this,” Kevin insists, passion tightening his voice. “The passion. The creativity, the drive. Kathy, Neil Josten took down Lightmaw with  _ the electricity from his own torn off arm _ . I have watched every simulation high score of that battle, do you know how many other people have tried that? Zero. Do you have any idea how many people got the kill faster? None. Neil Josten has the potential to be the greatest ranger in the Pacific, once he has a partner and learns some self-control.”

Neil’s heart thumps. This is why he stays even when it’s a death sentence. Kevin Day’s faith is worth dying for. Neil is incapable of letting him down. 

“There is no better introduction, Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Neil Josten, the newest ranger from the Foxhole Shatterdome!” The crowd cheers, Andrew booes, a hand hits Neil between the shoulderblades and shoves him firmly into the spotlight. 

It takes effort for Neil to control his expression, but he manages to force it into something acceptably pleasant as he walks across the stage to take Kathy’s hand. It feels like a dead fish in his. Kathy smiles and gestures at the couch, pouring him a glass of water as he sits next to Kevin. 

“Tell us,” Kathy urges, “the rumor is that you two are here today to announce your partnership! Kevin Day, paired again! And with you, Neil Josten, you are the talk of the nation! How does it feel?”

“Breathtaking,” Neil says wryly, barely even hearing his own voice over the thundering of his heart. “Kevin was the last person I expected to see in Arizona.”

“Lucky for all of us that he found you. It’s a pity you started so late, maybe if you had begun drifting a few years ago you would have been sent to Edgar Allen and paired there!”

Neil takes a moment to chew on that bit of irony until he can swallow it without choking. “I’ve never wanted to drift with anyone, the simulators were just for fun.”

“I’ll take your place!” Kathy volunteers with a laugh, “I wouldn’t mind cozying up with Kevin!”

“And get between two rangers?” Kevin tsks, playing along. As they banter, Neil looks out at the audience. The lights make it easy for the crowd to blur into an indistinct mass, except for the Foxes, who sit in the front row. Andrew winks at Neil threateningly from between Wymack and Renee, he looks tense this far away from Kevin. 

“Not partners,” Kevin is saying, “but Neil and I aren’t compatible, which means there will be two more strong teams in Northern California.”

Kathy grins, a bloodthirsty thing, and Kevin clenches his fist. Neil’s stomach drops. Kathy’s too savvy to allow an opening like that to pass by. “But something _did_ come between you and your partner. You must miss Riko, and he you.” Kathy says, voice sweetening like a tooth-ache. 

Kevin stiffens, shooting a panicked glance at the audience. “We are very busy,” he chokes out, “it is difficult to keep in touch.”

“Well,” Kathy bares her teeth. “Do I have a surprise for you.”

Music blares from hidden speakers, throbbing drums and unsettling strings, the distinctive song of Edgar Allen Shatterdome, played in every commercial, each time the doors open and the Jaeger’s march out to fight. 

Before every media appearance. 

“King, King, King!” the audience chants, the name of Riko’s new Jaeger on their lips. Adrenaline clears Neil’s mind. Beside him, Kevin moans. In the audience, Matt and Dan pale, Nicky raises a trembling hand to his mouth, even Aaron looks up from his phone. Andrew lunges towards the stage, but Renee pounces on him before he can take two steps. Wymack joins the silent fight, overpowering Andrew and holding him down. Neil can’t tear his eyes off of Andrew’s frozen snarl. 

Riko saunters on stage. He’s shorter than Neil imagined him. Sickeningly, his clothes match Kevin’s, only several shades darker. Kevin wheezes, hand coming up to touch the tattoo on his cheekbone. Riko’s corresponding mark glimmers under the lights. 

Nine months since Riko destroyed Kevin’s mind in the middle of a battle, and now he’s here, in the same room, reaching out to take his hand with a predatory smile. Kevin stands, dead white, eyes flashing like a spooked horse. Riko crushes Kevin’s hand viciously. 

The rage and fear and violation Neil feels towards Kevin bringing him here and releasing the videos and neatly cornering him into this interview dissolve in the face of Kevin’s desperation. Andrew thrashes, but he’s unable to shake Wymack and Renee off, still, Matt grips his wrist, allowing Renee to shift her entire body weight onto his lap. Kathy and Riko are smiling at each other, making small talk over Kevin’s petrified form. 

Neil is good at math. Riko is to Kevin what Neil’s father is to him, minus Andrew’s protection. It’s a simple equation that adds up to one thing: Neil definitively has Kevin’s back. Neil pulls his eyes away from Andrew and glares at Riko. 

Riko is still holding Kevin’s hand. Kevin doesn’t fight as Riko tugs him into a hug, leaning close to whisper something vicious into his ear. “I think you’ve shrunk since I saw you last,” Riko says as he leans back, letting Kevin fall bonelessly back onto the couch. Neil scoots closer to him, pressing his knee against Kevin’s, urging him to borrow Neil’s backbone until Kevin can find his own. 

“What a miracle,” Kathy sighs, “take a good look everyone! Raven Black are back together again, but for the first time, they aren’t partners. Riko, Kevin, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for indulging our fanaticism.”

Riko looks like he’s going to try and squeeze in beside Kevin on the couch, but Neil shifts until there is no room. Riko sits on the other couch. “Kevin says that you two haven’t spoken in quite some time,” Kathy says, leaning towards Riko, “Is that true?”

Riko nods sadly, “It is,” he replies. “You sound surprised.”

“I am! I don’t think anyone imagined you two splitting up for any reason, the world has fondly watched you together since you were children!”

“A year ago, we would have agreed with you,” Riko says, “but you have to understand how crushing mental weaknesses can be. Kevin’s… breakdown was his own, but we both suffered for it. We couldn’t handle what that meant, that flaw in our compatibility. How could we ever get in a Jaeger together, when any distraction could send us out of synch? We built our lives around our partnership, I couldn’t believe we’d lost it. I couldn’t accept it was over, and neither could Kevin, so we withdrew from each other.”

“For nine months?” Kathy is captivated, utterly taken in by Riko’s machinations. Neil wonders who he hates more. 

“Perhaps it was inevitable,” Kevin replies, voice low and timid, “we made drifting together the cornerstone of our identities. It was us against the monsters, saving humanity. We showed you our best, but the public pressure was wearing us down and we refused to admit it even to ourselves. We didn’t believe in limits, especially not to our compatibility.”

Kathy nods seriously. “That pressure sounds intense. It was so terrifying for all of us when you two disappeared. We watched you march out to face Strikerbreak, and then - nothing! A few pictures of the wreckage of Raven Black, but no one saw either of you for a month. We thought you may have fallen, but I didn’t realize how bad it was until Commander Wymack made his announcement.”

“The worst was having everything and then losing it,” Riko comments, as if Kathy hadn’t just suggested that Kevin dying was better than breaking his partnership with Riko. Neil swallows his father’s smile and starts to count down from five hundred in French. 

“Everything changed,” Kevin’s murmur is so low that even his microphone struggles to pick up his voice. “It was easier to walk away.” He looks at Riko and doesn’t look away. 

“Heartbreaking,” Kathy says, as if that’s the word that best sums up the situations. Neil has a few other suggestions, but he bites his tongue until he tastes blood. “But look at you both now! How far you’ve come! Riko, we watched with awe as you and Jean Moreau defended Yokohama on Wednesday, and Kevin's finally ready to find a new partner!”

Riko’s smile turns vicious as he turns it on Kevin. “I’m not sure I agree with you, Kathy. Speaking as Kevin’s brother, I worry that looking for a new partner is unwise. These relationships are tenuous, and under enormous pressure. Can Kevin really survive another breakdown? And what about his partner? What if they fall out of synch mid battle and his partner dies? Could he recover from that?” Riko’s voice is concerned, but it’s a weapon, shredding through Kevin’s vulnerable psyche. 

Neil loses track of his countdown and opens his mouth. “Gee, Riko. As his brother, I’d think you’d be a little bit more supportive. Believing in him now is really the  _ least  _ you could do after failing him so  _ utterly _ last winter.”

“Oh!” Kathy says over the audible reaction from the crowd, “how rude of me! Riko, meet Neil Josten, Kevin’s new protege.”

Riko finally looks at Neil, scornful and dismissive. “Mine and Kevin’s relationship is unique, I don’t expect you do understand what a drift compatible relationship is like, but I’ll thank you to not impress upon us your petty ideas of friendship.” 

“ _ Was  _ unique.” Neil says. “Was. I’m pretty sure you let that relationship die when you abandoned him.”

“Kevin chose to leave us,” Riko says, “we mourned his absence but the Kaiju kept coming. We were happy to hear that he got a job as a mechanic and trainer.”

“But you aren’t happy,” Neil accuses, “that he’s ready to drift again, without you. Even though you wasted no time in replacing him. Is that why you’re here now? To sabotage his search for a new partner? You’re rubbing in everything he’s lost and insinuating he’s a danger to drift with. Why would you do that if not cut him off at the knees? And even worse, it looks like you’re enjoying yourself.” Neil lets his disgust drip from each word, looking around the audience like he can’t believe Riko’s audacity. Kevin’s knee presses harder and harder against Neil’s. 

“I will ask you  _ one time _ to tone down your animosity,” Riko demands stiffly, looking at Neil hatefully. 

“I can’t,” Neil says, honest for once. “I have a  _ bit  _ of an attitude problem.”

“A bit,” Riko echoes, incredulous. 

“If it’s not what Neil says,” Kathy presses, “why are you here?”

“Kevin knows that he cannot drift with me again, and the rest of our rangers are too valuable to risk pairing him with. This is why he hasn’t returned home, he would not dishonor us or himself in that way. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t belong with us, what he has done with Whiskey Glory and Echo Six is impressive, and has proven that he can be valuable as a trainer for us.”

“What a choice!” Kathy exalts, “Kevin, I do not envy you! On one hand you could drift again, on the other you could go home.”

“You wouldn’t have him back, really,” Neil snaps, “I don’t believe it.”

“This has nothing to do with you,” Riko snaps back, allowing a hint of that temper to show.

“You’re being selfish,” Neil insists, ignoring Kevin shrinking at his side, and the aghast look Kathy is shooting him. The audience is silent. Andrew has gone still beneath the foxes, but none of them are stupid enough to let him up. “Kevin’s dream and duty has always been to protect humanity, how  _ dare  _ you ask him to settle for less. We are giving him a chance to do what he was built for, all he’s ever wanted, and you would stick him in a command center? You call him brother, but you’re nothing but an anchor dragging him down.”

“He is wasted at Palmetto!”

“He was wasted as your partner! Edgar Allan has a perfect kill record because you have sixteen teams! It’s harder to protect territory with so few, and Kevin is helping do that! When he finally finds a partner  _ worthy of him _ , he will show you greatness more than you could have ever dreamed of.”

“You don’t protect anything,” Riko replies scornfully, “your Shatterdome is a joke! How often do others have to come help you? Everyone knows you haven’t been shut down because of your commander, but rumor has it even that won’t help you for much longer. Two teams, it's pathetic, and the three empty Jaeger’s you have are wasted on you. Your arrogance is embarrassing and offensive, for someone who has never even stepped inside an actual Jaeger.”

“You don’t like my opinions? You’ll hate this one. I don’t think you’re worried about Kevin’s health or the safety of his partner, you’re scared he’s going to prove what you’ve always suspected: he’s better than you. A better ranger, a better partner, a better man. Those permanent numbers on your faces?” Neil gestures to their tattoos, “everyone is going to realize how premature they were. I think you’re scared.”

Riko smiles, but he looks like a vulture deciding not to wait for his prey to finish dying before he consumes it. “How could I be scared of Kevin? I know every piece of him.”

“You’re going to eat those words,” Neil’s voice is low and raw and vicious, “you’re going to choke on them.”

Music cuts in, distracting Neil enough that he sits up and looks around, remembering where he is. “Okay!” Kathy says with a nervous giggle, “how fascinating, but it looks like our time is up! Kevin, Riko, Neil, thank you so much for joining us this morning, you have all given us lots to think about!”

The audience claps and the foxes cheer. Neil can’t feel his legs. The light under the camera blinks off and Kathy relaxes. “Wow, boys,” she says, “what a show. I’ll bet that goes viral by Monday!”

“Thank you,” Kevin manages. 

Neil doesn’t say anything. He forces himself to his feet and tugs Kevin with him backstage. They have to go, they have to get back to the foxes, back to Andrew. Riko does not seem the type to let any sort of provocation go, much less a public confrontation. 

Fighting his every instinct, Neil puts his back to Riko and keeps his body between him and Kevin. They barely make it off stage before Riko grabs Neil by the shoulder and shoves him into the wall, holding him with bruising fingers and murderous eyes. “I don’t like your new pet, Kevin,” Riko says, “he needs to be house broken.”

“You saw his scores, the videos. His potential…” Kevin protests feebly, hovering close by with gritted teeth and wringing hands, but he doesn’t dare touch Riko.

“Potential,” Riko spits the word like it’s poison. “Like the rabid mutt? How’s that working out of you?” He turns on Kevin, advancing on him menacingly as he snarls viciously in Japanese. Kevin pales and shrinks and retreats. 

“Leave him alone!” Neil demands, grabbing Riko’s collar and hauling him away from Kevin. Riko swings around, his face a mask of black fury and barely contained violence. His fist goes back, but Kevin reaches out to hold him back. Riko backhands him without blinking. It’s a familiar movement for him, made easy through long practice. He turns back on Neil and his eyes look so much like the Butcher’s that Neil retreats, tripping over his own feet in his haste to get away. 

And then Andrew is there, standing between them with his arms spread as wide as his grin, like he’s looking for a hug. “Riko, I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you again.”

Riko flinches back despite himself. Neil doesn’t blame him, Andrew radiates vengeance and violence at levels that Riko can only aspire to. “We were just talking about you,” he rallies quickly.

“Looks like you did more than just talk,” Andrew makes a point of looking at Kevin, who clambers back to his feet unsteadily. “Don’t touch my things.” Andrew’s smile vanishes. He reaches around behind him and shoves at Neil, who gets the message and skirts around the two men to collect Kevin. 

He ushers Kevin down the hallway until they come face to face with the foxes. Abby takes one look at Kevin and pulls him into a hug.

“Are you actually stupid?” Wymack demands of Neil. “I should have made you stay home.”

“Yes,” Neil agrees, whirling back around to go collect Andrew and ignoring Matt’s guffaw. He doesn’t know why he would even consider running into Riko again, but he doesn’t even think about it, he just goes. 

Riko is gone when he finds Andrew, who slips a blade back into his armband. Briefly, Neil wonders if he used it against Riko, but there’s no sign of blood so he dismisses the fantasy. “Not such a rabbit after all,” Andrew says in greeting. 

“Just a dead one,” Neil says, sagging against the wall.  _ I have to run, _ Neil realizes, and for the first time since he saw Kevin he knows he will this time.  _ That's why I came looking for Andrew, to say goodbye. _ It’s useless to wonder why, so instead he just rests his head against the wall and looks. 

“No,” Andrew says.

“What?”

“For such a good liar you are awfully transparent. You aren’t running.” Andrew advances on Neil, stopping only when there is a bare inch between their bodies. Neil should flinch back, he should feel threatened and trapped and uncomfortable. Instead he just feels the heat radiating from Andrew’s body. Despite himself, his shoulders slump. 

“I have to.” Andrew smells like leather and smoke and oil. 

“What would it take?” Each word is bitten off, driven straight through Neil’s body by the intensity of Andrew’s gaze on his own. He’s still high, but he’s somehow forcing the chemicals down for this conversation.

Neil shrugs, careful not to brush Andrew’s body with his own. “I’d stay if I could, I don’t want to run.”

He doesn’t know why he’s being so honest, he doesn’t know why he’s talking to Andrew, he’s just so, so tired.

“Stay and I’ll protect you. Tell me what you need and I will give it to you.”

“Why?” the word is ripped out of Neil with blood. “You hate me, just this morning you wanted to throw me out of a helicopter, if I leave your life gets much easier. You should be shoving me out the door.”

Andrew tilts his head, but he doesn’t deny any of it. “You protected Kevin at what seems like a great deal of personal risk. I will not feel obligated to you.”

Neil thinks of something Andrew won’t give him. Something he wants, he realizes, quite desperately.  _ I’ll leave, _ he thinks,  _ when Andrew fails to follow through. _ “Agree to a trial,” he says, “with me. One compatibility test, and I’ll stay.”

Andrew loses the fight with his medication. He laughs, and laughs and laughs. 

But he doesn’t say no. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost cut it when Riko comes on the show and then I decided... nah
> 
> as always, let me know what you think!!!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is pretty canon typical guys, so those warnings apply. massive thank you for everyone who reads, comments or gives kudos to this story, I love you all!
> 
> enjoy!

Andrew is cheerful and horrible the whole flight up the coast. It’s as if his clarity after Kathy’s show came at the price of his drugs forcing even more mania than they usually do. He talks about everything and nothing, smiling and chuckling and flipping his knives fast enough to rival the helicopter blades. That, combined with the adrenaline crash after his confrontation with Riko leaves Neil twitchy and exhausted. 

Neil abandons Kevin to Andrew’s casual cruelty and huddles in the back of the helicopter, pulling his hoodie as tight as he can around himself and pretending he’s somewhere far far away from the stupid promise he’s just made.  _ Because what if Andrew holds up his end of the deal? _

Nicky stops letting him pretend to sleep when they are still a half hour out from the Shatterdome. “What was that, back there?” he asks, nudging Neil with his shoulder until Neil glares and sits up. 

“I don’t like bullies,” he replies. “I couldn’t just leave Kevin up there to face him alone.”

“He wouldn’t have done the same for you,” Nicky says softly. It’s not a kind thing to say, but there’s no hint of judgement in Nicky’s voice. 

Neil shrugs. “Who would have taught him how? Maybe the next time he sees cruelty, he will, now.”

Nicky looks at him for a long moment, long enough for Neil to shift uncomfortably. “You’re a good kid, Neil Josten,” he finally says. “And so cute too. Bone structure like yours? No way you’re straight. C’mon, tell me you play for my team!”

“You’re not old enough to call me kid,” Neil says, neatly sidestepping Nicky’s blatant flirting. 

“Yeah well, did you know I was the twins guardian? I stepped in when I was eighteen. Those gremlins aged me at least a billion years.” He tries to make it sound like a joke, but his voice rings hollow. 

Neil turns to look at him. “What do you mean? What happened to their parents?”

Nicky bites his lip and looks around the helicopter. Andrew is flying too high to pay attention to anything but pestering Kevin and Wymack. He spins his knives and leans out the side of the chopper, forcing the Marshal to swear and yank him back over and over again, while he laughs and laughs. Aaron has put on his headphones and is steadfastly ignoring everyone around him. 

“They never had a dad, Tilda never said who he was, anyway. So she was all alone when she gave birth and I guess two babies were too much for her, so she gave one up. We didn’t even find out about Andrew until he and Aaron were fifteen and some cop confused them. Within a few weeks Andrew was in juvie, right before Aaron was supposed to visit his foster family. He didn’t want anything to do with us, so Tilda and Aaron moved back to South Carolina. My dad convinced her to try and get custody back when Andrew got out. Tilda died a few months later in a car accident.” Nicky shrugs uncomfortably, obviously not wanting to talk about the nasty matricide rumors that swirl around that particular wreck. “My parents… I didn’t want them to take the twins. I was in Germany at the time, but Erik and I agreed I had to at least offer them a choice.”

“Is that why they don’t drift? Because they didn’t grow up together?” 

Nicky doesn’t bother pointing out what they both already know, that people drift together all the time without knowing each other from childhood. “Andrew laughed in Aaron’s face the one time he suggested a trial,” Nicky says sadly, “I don’t think Aaron ever forgave him for that.”

“But Aaron’s a medic,” Neil points out, “why would he care?”

Nicky looks at him oddly. “You’re an only child with shitty parents, aren’t you?” he guesses. He’s not wrong, so Neil shrugs and accepts Nicky’s sympathetic shoulder pat before they lapse into silence. 

The rest of the flight passes quickly, with Neil thinking about what Nicky had told him. As soon as they land, Wymack immediately goes to check in with Echo-Six, while the rest of them go to their rooms to catch up on sleep. Neil has only just laid down when there’s a knock on his door. Neil stumbles over and peers out the peephole. He opens the door with a resigned sigh.

Nicky grins excitedly and holds up a bag. “This is for you,” he says. “Andrew says that you’re coming out with us tonight!”

“What,” Neil says flatly, eyeing the bag with distrust. 

“He’s keeping you Neil!” Nicky gushes, “I don’t know what you said to him at Kathy’s, but you're family now and that means you can’t go around looking like-” Nicky sniffs in disgust and gestures at all of Neil, “this.”

_ Family.  _

Neil looks down at his jumpsuit. Most of the other rangers don’t wear them if they aren’t on duty or training, but he likes his uniform, it makes him feel like a real person. “I have other clothes,” he points out, thinking of the three pairs of jeans and six t-shirts stowed in his foot locker. 

Nicky rolls his eyes. “Andrew said you’d say that. He also told me to tell you that he’ll ‘burn them with you still wearing them’ if he ever sees them again.” Nicky raises his hands defensively. “That’s why he hit you with a wrench, apparently.”

“That’s why he hit me with the wrench,” Neil repeats flatly, taking the bag hesitantly. 

“Hey, hey now, don’t blame the messenger! I don’t speak psychopath, okay? Crazy or not, though, he’s got great taste in clothes and he bought these himself. You’re gonna look  _ smoking  _ -” Neil slams the door in his face before he can finish his sentence. “Also he said something about contacts!” Nicky shouts, slapping the door. “He says leave them behind!”

Neil has spent too much time around  _ actual  _ psychopaths to ever be convinced that Andrew is one, but that doesn’t exactly make him trustworthy, so Neil unpacks the shopping bag with the same level of care he would take in disarming a bomb. As far as he can tell, they’re just clothes, dark and fitted and artfully slashed to reveal flashes of mesh-covered skin. Neil has never been anywhere that would require such clothing. It’s silky and light and slips through his fingers like water. 

Neil sits on his bed with the shirt in his hands and gnaws his lip. He could just not show up. He could stick with the Echo Six and Whiskey Tango and throw a fit when Andrew comes to collect him, but something has fundamentally shifted in their relationship since Neil stood up for Kevin on Kathy’s show. Andrew had convinced him to stay, he had heard Neil’s terms and not outright rejected them. Neil has to see this through. 

After his shower, Neil pulls on his new clothes, and leaves his contacts strewn across his sink. 

_ Family.  _

\--

Nicky pretends to swoon into Erik’s arms when Neil walks into the room. Nicky’s fiancee chuckles and presses his lips under Nicky’s chin. He’s still dressed in his uniform, on duty all night. Kevin and Aaron lounge on the couch, dressed similarly to Neil. “Where’s Andrew?” Neil asks, ignoring Nicky’s display. Kevin takes a slug of vodka and looks away from Neil, Aaron doesn't even looks up. 

“He and Renee disappeared somewhere a few hours ago. There’s a bet on whether they’re off doing the straight person nasty, d’you want in?” Nicky asks. Neil, who very much does not want in, wrinkles his nose. 

“Well well well,” Andrew says from the doorway. “Kevin was so worried you wouldn’t show up. But I told him that you had already shown us your backbone and knew better than to try and unring that bell. It is ever so nice to be proven right.”

Neil turns around and finds himself face to face with Andrew, who has stepped quite firmly into his space. Before Neil can step back, Andrew’s hand shoots out and grasps his chin, turning his face this way and that to inspect his eyes. Neil barely resists the urge to close them. “I kept my promise,” he challenges, “your turn to keep yours.”

“Oh, what the fuck, Andrew!” Aaron sighs from the couch. “Again?” 

Neil thinks Andrew is going to ignore that comment, but he shakes his head twice and turns on his twin. “Aaron, you’ve misheard, he said he kept his promise and it’s my turn to keep mine, not the other way around. The word “again” implies that that’s happened before and we both know that’s not true.”

“Okay!” Nicky buts in before Aaron can reply. “Andrew’s here, Neil looks _super_ hot, can’t we all just make like Kevin and get drunk? Please?”

Andrew grabs a glass from the counter and throws it across the room where it shatters against the wall a foot from Nicky’s head. “I don’t like that word,” he says, jabbing an aggressive finger at his rapidly paling cousin. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Nicky chants, leaping between his cousin and his visibly angry fiancee. “We’re okay.”

Neil raises his eyebrows and is grateful for his own lack of a family. Andrew loses interest in Nicky almost immediately and turns back to Neil as if nothing has happened. “Kaiju blue,” he comments, eyes catching on Neil’s again. “What an unexpected show of honesty.”

“You owe me for it,” Neil reminds him. 

Andrew throws back his head and cackles. “I do, I do,” his smile vanishes. “I do.” His hand drifts towards Neil’s face again, this time pressing against his carotid artery hard enough to feel his pulse. “Remember this feeling,” he says softly, staring into Neil’s eyes. “This is the moment you stop being the rabbit.”

Neil can feel his pulse against Andrew’s fingertips, so he knows when it speeds up. Before Neil can figure out why, Andrew slips back out the door, tugging Neil with him. The other men follow them. Neil considers asking where they’re going, but he’s not sure he’ll get an answer, let alone a satisfactory one. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter anyway, he’s committed to seeing this through. 

They run into the two ranger teams in the hallway. Renee easily detaches herself from their group and drifts over to loop her arm through Dan’s, looking over with concern at Seth and Allison, who seem to be fighting.

“I’m not an idiot, Alli,” Seth snaps, throwing his hands up. “You don’t have to fucking nag me!”

“Obviously, you are!” Allison hisses, trying to dig her fingers into Seth’s pockets. He slaps her hands away. “We’re on duty tonight anyway, and I won’t drift with you if you’re high!”

“I’m not going to fucking take them!” 

“Neil!” Matt shouts, clearly trying to distract everyone from the argument. “You made it!” It works, everyone, including Seth and Allison, turn to stare at Neil. “Seth and Allison are debating the costs and benefits of doing uppers when they might possibly have to get into a Jaeger, but the rest of us are planning a movie marathon. Any suggestions?”

“Where’d you get the drugs?” Nicky asks cautiously, “because-”

“Mind your business, fag.” Seth immediately turns his vitriol on Nicky.

“Die, then.” Nicky snaps, though his face has shuttered slightly. 

“Anyway,” Matt says, before Andrew can get involved. “I know you don’t drink, but we have plenty of non alcoholic options for Renee, so-”

“Oh that’s alright, Matt!” Andrew interjects brightly. “I’m buying Neil’s drinks from now on.”

“Absolutely not!” Dan snaps, detangling her arms from Renee and Matt and stepping forward. “You’re kidding!”

Andrew snickers with drugged delight. “You wish, teachers pet. It will  _ probably _ end up better than last time. Although I’m not sure why you’re complaining when I did you a favor.”

“A  _ favor!” _ Dan shrieks. “Absolutely not, I’m not letting you take him, that’s final.”

“Jesus, Dan,” Nicky sniffs. “It’s like we’re kidnappers or something.”

“Aren’t you?” Matt asks, voice hard, crossing his arms intimidatingly. 

“Now who can’t mind their own business?” Aaron says snidely, eyeing Seth as though hoping he’ll get involved. 

“I said no,” Dan says, reaching out to pull Neil closer to her group. 

“Hey, Neil,” Andrew says, elbowing him. “I thought you said your mom was dead, do you think her ghost is possessing Dan, because she seems to think she’s in charge of you. Maybe you should remind her you’re an adult, and not a toy.”

“I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” Neil says, lifting his hand to wave. 

“Neil,” Dan protests, “you don’t understand, they gave Matt drugs, they-”

“Kept him safe when he fell off the wagon and helped him get sober? Oh,  _ yes, _ we’re monsters,” Andrew drawls. “Neil, if I offer you ecstasy, will you take so much of it you piss yourself?”

“What? No-” Neil says, swinging his head from one group to the other. 

“See, Dan, no need to worry about the little rabbit. We’ll take  _ good  _ care of him.” The words are threatening, but Neil gets the feeling that Andrew is more interested in needling Dan than putting Neil in danger. “Time to go, now.” He saunters down the hall, not waiting to see if his group follows him. Neil mutters goodbyes to the others and hurries after him. 

Andrew is vibrating by the time they descend to the lowest level of the Shatterdome. The polished concrete floors echo each footstep and Nicky’s steady stream of commentary and low stakes bickering with Kevin and Aaron. “What’s wrong with you?” Neil asks Andrew when he pauses alongside a sleek black GS. 

“The forced euphoria wasn’t bad enough,” Andrew confides, yanking on the passenger door handle until Nicky opens it, “they had to make the drugs physically addictive too. The comedown is quite nasty.” Apparently, there is still enough in his system to make him think his pain is funny, because he laughs at it.

Neil feels vaguely ill, but he doesn’t comment as he slips into the backseat between Kevin and Aaron. Nicky pulls out of the garage and drives through the Presidio. Andrew is no longer talking, instead resting his head against the cool window as they drive far too fast through Jordan Park, likely scandalizing the upscale neighborhood. They end up in The Castro, at a small diner called Sweeties. They have to drive around the block several times before they find a meter. 

Andrew vomits while Nicky pays, forcing Aaron to jump backwards to avoid getting spayed. Kevin pulls out a small orange bottle from his pocket and shakes it enticingly at Andrew. “Put that shit away,” Andrew grinds out, wiping a shaking hand across his mouth. 

Kevin rolls his eyes, but the bottle vanishes back into his cargo pants. 

Sweetie’s is loud and crowded and smells like fried food, burned coffee and artificial sweeteners. Andrew shoves through the waiting groups and snatches several menus from the cheap hostess podium. He leads them to a dirty table, pausing only to stuff a few handfuls of saltine crackers from the salad bar. Andrew ignores the mess and throws himself into the chair closest to the window and tears into the crackers. Neil slips into the seat next to him and watches the cousins and Kevin pile the dishes onto the next table. 

It’s inexcusably rude, but the waitress doesn’t say anything when she appears to take their orders. Neil opens his mouth to order coffee, but Andrew speaks over him and asks for ice cream, handing her crinkling handfuls of cracker wrappers. 

She snaps her gum, pockets the wrappers and disappears into the crowd. Neil sips his water slowly through his straw and watches the others warily. Andrew looks peaked and ill, hands twitching around his cold glass and sweat beading around his hairline. He swallows compulsively and darts his eyes towards the kitchen every few seconds. Strangely, none of his family or Kevin seem to notice anything wrong with him. 

The waitress returns swiftly, arms full of sundaes and far two many cheap paper napkins. Andrew sits up and snatches the napkins from her hands, shuffling through them carelessly enough that half of them go flying off the table. Andrew plucks two small plastic baggies containing a yellow powder from the mess and upends them into his mouth, chasing them with mouthfuls of brightly colored ice cream. 

“God, be  _ more  _ obvious about it,” Aaron mutters, shoving the rest of the baggies into his pockets. 

They all tuck into the ice cream with relish, while Neil watches with vague disgust. He’s never liked sweet foods and the casual drug use makes him uncomfortable. He reconsiders Dan’s comments about Andrew drugging Matt, and his stomach lurches. Perhaps he’s made a terrible mistake by trusting Andrew. 

“You gonna eat that?” Andrew asks him when he comes up for air. He nods at Neil’s melting sundae. Somehow, he’s already finished his own. 

“Help yourself,” Neil responds, shoving the sticky glass bowl over with one finger. 

Andrew eats both sundaes in the time it takes the others to eat one. Even Kevin indulges, which Neil is absolutely going to bring up the next time he nags Neil about his refusal to swallow Kevin’s grainy protein shakes. Andrew stands abruptly and tosses a handful of large bills on the table. He looks better, sober and unsmiling despite the drugs. He’s no longer sick and shaking, which makes Neil feel better, although he’s more of a threat now. 

“Is he okay to drive?” Neil asks Kevin as they leave the restaurant. 

“We aren’t driving,” Kevin replies. 

They walk two blocks east before Neil can hear pulsing music loud enough to shake the sidewalk. A line of people dressed in silver-studded leather stretches around the corner, but the cousins walk by them like they aren’t even there. They walk to a darkened entrance and are greeted enthusiastically by the massive bouncers, who look faintly surprised to see Neil with them. 

“Welcome,” Nicky says dramatically, throwing his arms out and spinning around. “to Eden’s Twilight.”

“It’s a nightclub,” Neil has to shout over the ear grinding music to be heard, but he suddenly understands the necessity for his new clothes. “Why are we here?”

Aaron snorts as he and Nicky and Kevin break off to find a table, Andrew marching in the other direction. Neil looks at Kevin’s back, kicks himself for being stupid, and follows Andrew to the bar. 

Surprisingly, the bartender looks happy to Andrew, leaning over the bar to smile at him. “Andrew, did you make a new friend?” he says, grinning at Neil when he comes up behind the other man. 

“You know me,” Andrew deadpans, all traces of humor fading from his voice with his medication. 

“I’m Roland,” the bartender says, holding a hand across the bar for Neil to shake. Neil does not take it. “What can I get you?”

“I don’t drink,” Neil replies. The bar is crowded, sweating strangers jostling for drinks shove against Neil’s back, making him grit his teeth and long for a corner to shove himself into. 

“He’ll take a soda,” Andrew decides, taking a smooth step around Neil to stand between him and the bar. “Clean.”

Roland’s eyes shoot up in surprise. Neil stiffens at the implication. Roland produces a tray full of shots and mixed drinks as well as an unopened soda. “I’m off at 11:30,” Roland says to Andrew. Andrew swipes the soda, sending it skidding towards the end of the bar, Neil catches it before it can trip over the lip and fall. 

Andrew lifts the tray and takes two steps into the crowd before he turns back to Neil and steps back into his space. “I don’t have time to chase you tonight, Rabbit. Keep your promise and stay. Or go, and hope I never see you again.” Andrew walks away before Neil can think of anything to say. 

Neil finds a corner and leans against it. He thinks about all that Andrew knows about him, his eyes, the money, his obsession with Raven Black, his willingness to step in for Andrew to protect Kevin. Neil should vanish, he should take this opportunity and disappear. He can’t afford not to, not after pissing off Riko so spectacularly. But. But he told Andrew he would stay, on the condition that Andrew give him a shot at what he wants most in the world. Nicky called him family. Andrew just made a point of reassuring Neil his drink was clean. Neil wants to stay. Even the Butcher would have to go against the United Security Council to take a Ranger from a Shatterdome. 

Neil spots a flash of white blond hair through a gap in the writhing crowd and follows it to their table. Unfortunately, it’s Aaron, not Andrew, who sits with Nicky and Kevin. “Where’s Andrew?” Neil asks, popping open his soda. 

“Getting more drinks,” Kevin says, looking mournfully at the empty table in front of them. 

Neil raises his eyebrows. “You already drank all of them?”

“It wasn’t  _ that  _ many, split between the four of us,” Nicky sniffs defensively. 

Neil shakes his head and drinks his soda. “You have problems,” he informs them. 

“Oh, like you can talk,” Aaron snaps. “Finally,” he continues when Andrew reappears with a refreshed tray. “Why does it always take you so long to get our second round?”

Andrew is too busy looking at Neil to reply. “You stayed,” he says, blank faced. 

Neil shrugs. “I promised I would.”

Andrew sits down and looks at the table. “Yes,” he murmurs, “how interesting.”

Neil has nothing to say to that, so he nurses his soda and watches Nicky, Kevin and Aaron throw back drink after drink. Within a few minutes, they stumble to their feet. “Come dance with us!” Nicky begs, tugging at Neil’s sleeves. “You’re far too pretty to sit here by yourself.”

Neil pulls his hands away and sits on them. “I’m not by myself,” he says. 

Nicky pouts, but lets himself be pulled away by the others. 

“Were you going to drug me?” Neil asks eventually, turning the warm can between his hands. “Like you drugged Matt?”

“Yes,” Andrew says, sipping his whiskey rocks, “and no.” 

“But you didn’t. Drug me, I mean.” Neil is sure of this, he’s swallowed enough of the soda that anything he was slipped would have kicked in by now. 

Andrew shoots him a sideways glance. “I didn’t need to anymore. Whatever your creepy obsession with Raven Black is, that money didn’t come from Riko paying you to hurt Kevin. You don’t have to tell me anything, I’ll get my chance to dig around in your head soon enough.”

“We only agreed on a compatibility test,” Neil whispers. He still doesn’t believe that Andrew will hold up his end. The only reason he had asked for it is because he was sure Andrew would refuse. He doesn’t know how to handle  _ agreement. _

“Oh Neil,” Andrew sighs, “you know better than that. Don’t be boring. You’ll have enough trouble keeping my interest without actively trying to lose it.”

“Why did you drug Matt?” Neil asks, “you knew he was an addict.”

“He was falling off the wagon and yanking Aaron with him.” Andrew shrugs, rattling the ice in his glass. “Weakness is contagious, you know.”

Before Neil can reply, red lights flash and air horns scream through the club, echoing across the city. The music clicks off and the lights click on, revealing chaos as drunk party goers rush around in a panic. Neil and Andrew exchange a look, then dive into the milieu together in search of the others. 

_ This shouldn’t be happening.  _ Neil thinks as he shoves his way through the screaming crowd. There was a breach just a few days ago, there shouldn’t be another one so soon. But those are undeniably the Kaiju alarms, sending people into the shelters until Rangers can take the monster down. A hand clasps around Neil’s wrist and yanks, pulling him closer to Andrew, who uses Neil’s body to herd his family towards the doors. 

Andrew pulls a knife and offers Neil another. Neil refuses it with a shudder and then grabs a fistfull of Kevin’s jacket to keep him nearby. It’s too loud to talk until they make it out the door and around the corner. Neil and Andrew shove Kevin, Nicky and Aaron into an alleyway, out of the way of the stampede of people making their way to the nearest shelter. 

Nicky leans over and vomits. Neil props Kevin on the wall and turns to Andrew. “Shelter?” he asks, thinking doubtfully of the crowded underground rooms with a shudder. 

“No,” Andrew says, “this shouldn’t be happening.”

“I don’t think the Kaiju gives a shit,” Neil says, “what do we do?”

“Stay here. Don’t let them wander off,” Andrew orders, and walks back into the chaos. Sirens still blare above them. Neil considers using Nicky’s phone to call Matt, but he knows he and Dan will be in the command center with Wymack, in case Seth and Allison need back up. 

_ This doesn’t make sense. _ Kaiju never attacked the same city so frequently. The breach opened almost every day, yes, but the monsters went in all directions, terrorizing cities all over the Pacific. Statistically, this is rare. 

Andrew’s car growls to the mouth of the alley. Neil leads the boys to the car and helps them get in. 

“Whas happening?” Nicky says blearily, “an attack?”

“Duh,” Aaron hiccups, crawling into the backseat. “Right?”

“Can’t be,” Kevin mutters, sitting next to him. 

Andrew drives them through the chaotic city. Traffic is crawling as people flee their homes and flood the streets. The entrances to the shelters are neon and flashing green, some of them are yellow and a few of them are red, indicating full capacity. Finally, Andrew stops the car next to one of the undeveloped hills that dot the city. “Get the gate,” he tells Neil, who obediently climbs out of the car and heaves the rusty metal gate to the side. The hinges creak, but the sound is drowned out by the roar of a Kaiju. 

Neil freezes, adrenaline coursing through his system. It has been a long time since he has been in the warpath of a Kaiju. Andrew honks the horn, and Neil remembers how to use his legs. Andrew drives them up the maintenance road in ever tightening circles until they pull in front of a radio tower. 

From here, they can see the downtown skyscrapers and the colorful box houses of Daly City. And the Bay. They can see the Bay. Nicky, Kevin and Aaron are passed out and snoring in the back, so Andrew and Neil leave them there and walk to the edge of the precipice. The world seems oddly quiet, so far above the sirens. 

Andrew lights a cigarette and passes one to Neil as Echo Six paces at the harbor mouth. They are so far away that the Jaeger almost looks like a toy. 

Neil and Andrew watch as the sea explodes, expelling a scorpion looking Kaiju. Echo Six pounces, shooting plasma from her massive arms. The Kaiju shudders and rocks back, disappearing into the water. Echo Six waits, head spinning as she looks for any sign of the monster.

It comes up from beneath them, lashing out with its minivan size stinger. The stinger hits Echo Six in the chest, sending electricity sparking along her exterior. She spasms as Seth and Allison stumble back. They regain their footing and swing their arms up, one closing around the Kaiju's tail like a vice while a sword extends from the other's wrists. 

The Kaiju screams and tries to pull away as the sword rises, dagger sharp legs splaying outwards. 

Then the sword freezes, like it’s stuck, and Echo Six goes still. 

“What’s wrong with them?” Neil asks, cigarette breaking between his fingers. He looks over at Andrew, who watches the fight with his signature blankness. His cigarette has gone out, the only sign of his alarm. “Andrew,” Neil’s voice breaks as the Kaiju tears away from Echo Six’s grip, screaming defiance and victory. 

Echo Six doesn’t move.  Neil wants to shout, he wants to run, he wants to hide, he wants to _help_. But all he can do is watch as the Kaiju pounces. Whiskey Tango is sprinting towards them, using her jetpack to speed her way, but they won’t get there in time. Echo Six has to  _ do something- _

Echo Six doesn’t move. The Kaiju sinks its vicious tail into her head and chest over and over and Neil can hear the metal scream and give way as it's torn open, despite the distance between them. Echo Six stumbles and falls into the ocean, bubbles rising from the exposed cock pit. 

Whiskey Tango hits the Kaiju like a wrecking ball, rolling it over and over away from Allison and Seth’s watery grave.  _ They’re dead, _ Neil tells himself, waiting for his emotions to kick in.  _ Allison and Seth are dead.  _ Whiskey Tango rips the Kaiju apart, in a violent explosion of rage and grief.  _ They were alive and now they’re dead.  _

Neil isn’t sad. He didn’t know them all that well after all. But they were a good team, and their Jaeger was well taken care of. They shouldn’t have died like that. It doesn’t make any sense. He looks at Andrew, who meets his eyes, understanding passing between them. 

In the car, a cell phone rings. In the bay, Whisky Tango has lifted the wreckage of Echo Six out of the water. A helicopter hovers above the gaping hole in her chest. “One of them lived, then,” Andrew says, nodding at the medivac. 

“Allison,” Aaron says dumbly, looking at the phone in his shaking hand. “Something went wrong with Seth. The Marshall says he lost his drift. He’s dead.”

“Oh my god,” Nicky moans, sagging against the car. Neil wonders if he’s remembering his comment from earlier that night.  _ Die then _ , he had told Seth flippantly, in the face of his casual homophobia. 

“What does this mean for the Shatterdome?” Neil asks Kevin. 

“It’s not a great loss,” Kevin says. “Seth was a mediocre pilot at best, but the Council won’t let us operate with a single team.” he shoots a meaningful look between Neil and Andrew. 

“Jesus fuck, a man is dead!” Aaron snaps in disgust. “Does that mean nothing to you?”

Neil shrugs. He had never liked Seth and his mother had beaten most of his empathy out of him by the time he was twelve. He’s mostly worried about the impact of Seth’s death, and the cluster of unlikely events that led up to it. 

“Get in the car,” Andrew says finally. “We need to go back.”

Neil waits until they re enter the Presidio to turn to Andrew. “This wasn’t an accident,” he says, carefully examining Andrew's face. 

“We knew Riko was going to react to your little tantrum,” Andrew agrees. “This was too neat to be an accident.”

“But how?” Neil asks, “not even Riko can conjure up a Kaiju.”

It should be comforting and reassuring, but the knot in Neil’s throat grows and grows until he’s sure it’s going to choke him. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun dun...
> 
> next update in about three weeks
> 
> lemme know what you think!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


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